Brian McDonald
President of Iran Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash on Sunday along with the Islamic republic’s foreign minister and others, the country’s state media confirmed on Monday morning. Raisi, a hardline Islamic cleric who has been touted as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was 63 years old.
Under the Islamic republic’s system of government, Raisi, like all presidents who have served before him since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought the ayatollahs to power, is not the country’s final decision-maker. All government officials, along with the military and all law enforcement agencies, ultimately answer to Khamenei, who at age 85 has ruled the country since 1989 as its second supreme leader.
Given this power structure, Seyed Bathaei of CBS News in Tehran said Raisi’s death was unlikely to trigger any political crisis, and the supreme leader was quick to assure his country that government business would continue without phases.
Who will replace President Raisi of Iran and how?
According to Iran’s constitution, First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber became the country’s acting president on Monday following his formal appointment by Ayatollah Khamenei. State media said Mokhber had already started receiving calls from foreign officials and governments before Khamenei announced his interim role.
The Iranian cabinet issued a statement after Monday’s meeting promising to follow Raisi’s path and adding that, “with the help of God and the people, there will be no problems with the management of the country.”
The cabinet said the “hard-working president” had been “martyred” and promised to keep the government running “without the slightest interruption.”
Iranian Presidency/Handout/Anadolu/Getty
Mokhber quickly appointed Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s nuclear negotiator, as caretaker of the Foreign Ministry, said office spokesman Ali Bahadori Jahromi.
What happens next?
The Constitution requires, and Khamenei reaffirmed on Monday, that the next step is to hold national elections to choose a new president. This has to happen within 50 days. No date had been set as of Monday night in Iran.
As interim president, Mokhber is tasked with organizing unscheduled elections to choose Raisi’s formal successor.
Raisi won Iran’s last presidential election in 2021 – a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic republic’s history and was considered a highly undemocratic political exercise by the US and other Western nations.
Iran’s ruling clerics have banned all opposition-minded candidates from running in the 2021 elections, and political speech is highly limited in the country.
