Following the death of President Ibrahim Reisi in a helicopter crash, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced that First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber would carry out presidential duties until the election, in accordance with the relevant article of the constitution.

A message of condolence was posted on Khamenei’s X media platform following the death of President Reisi in a helicopter crash. Khamenei, who wished Reisi mercy, condoled with the Iranian people and announced 5 days of general mourning in the country. Khamenei said: “According to Article 131 of the Constitution, Mr (First Vice President) Mokhber is the head of the executive branch and is responsible for making the necessary arrangements with the heads of the legislative and judicial branches to ensure the election of a new president within a maximum of 50 days.”

According to Press TV, Mokhber is expected to be one of the candidates in the new election to be held in 50 days.

Who is Mohammad Mokhber?

Mohammad Mokhber was born in 1955 in Dezful, Khuzestan Province, Iran. He holds a degree in electrical engineering and a doctorate in economic planning and management and international law.

Appointed First Vice President of the Republic of Iran in 2021, he has served as a member of the Iranian Council for the Determination of the Interests of the Order, Managing Director of Sinabank, President of the Foundation for the Implementation of the Commandments of Imam Khomeini, Director of Customs and Transport of the Economic Organisation of the Mustazaflar Foundation, and Deputy Governor of Khuzestan.

In January 2021, the US Treasury Department placed the Centre for the Implementation of Imam Khomeini’s Commandments, which is affiliated with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and headed by Mokhber, and its directors on the sanctions list for “confiscating land and property from opponents of the regime, including political opponents, religious minorities and exiles”.

It was added to the European Union’s sanctions list in July 2010 for the same reason and removed two years later.

No survivors in helicopter crash: Iran to hold elections in 50 days

The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on Sunday has shocked the Middle East in particular and the broader world in general.

The death of Raisi was confirmed 17 hours after the helicopter carrying him and his high-ranking delegation disappeared. It was officially confirmed that all the passengers, Raisi and his foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdullahian, have died. However, Raisi’s death does not leave a power vacuum in Iran and according to the constitution, the first vice President Mohammad Mokhber to assume power next and he is responsible to hold elections within 50 days.

Raisi has been considered as one of the closest figures to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This relationship was so close that some observers believed that Raisi could be the successor of Khamenei after his death.

Who was Raisi and how did he become the president of Iran?

Ebrahim Raisi was born in 1964 in the Noghan district of Mashhad. Based on the information of Raisi’s official website, his father, Hujjatul Islam Haji Raees Al Sadati, was also a cleric in Mashhad. Raisi studied in the religious schools of Mashhad and then went to the city of Qom, the center of religious schools of Iran, where he studied in the field of religious sciences.

While studying in the religious schools of Qom, he established a relationship with the opposition clerics of Mohammad Reza Shah and joined the group of young supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. After the victory of the revolution, Raisi climbed the ladder of power with impressive speed.

He was only 20 years old when he became the prosecutor of the cities of Karaj and Hamadan, and from 1361 to 1363 he was the prosecutor of Hamadan province. An important official who had a lot of authority in Iran’s “revolutionary” system.

In the same period and at the age of 23, he married the daughter of one of the most influential clerics in Iran. Raisi’s marriage with the daughter of Ayatollah Seyyed Ahmad Alam Al-Hadi, the Friday imam of Mashhad, further strengthened Raisi’s position.

Raisi was appointed deputy prosecutor of the Tehran Revolution in 1998 and held the position of Tehran prosecutor.

Raisi, after five years as head of the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office, became the head of the “General Inspection Organization”. After that, he was the first deputy of the Judiciary for ten years, and in 2013 he became the Attorney General of Iran and then he was in charge of “Astan Quds Razavi”, which is one of the closest institutions to the leader of Iran.

Failure in the elections and victory in the judiciary

In 2017, Raisi entered the presidential election race against Hassan Rouhani. In this election, Rouhani defeated Raisi by winning 57pc of the votes. Although Raisi entered the field with Khamenei’s support, he managed to get only 38pc of the votes and lost to the reformist rival.

A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other senior officials crashed in the northwestern part of Iran on May 19, 2024. APA

The defeat of the candidate supported by the leader of the Islamic Republic had hurt the position of the concervatives in the balance of power against the reformists. But Khamenei made up for this failure by appointing a head of the judiciary. At the same time, Raisi also won the vice presidency of the Council of Leadership Experts. In case of the death of Iran’s religious leader, this council is responsible for appointing a new leader.

This promotion made Raisi one step closer to the presidency of Iran and further established his position among the fundamentalists.

In the presidential election, finally, Raisi won the election without a serious opponent and won 62pc of the votes. This election had the lowest level of participation in the history of Iran.

Raisi and the presidency

Raisi started his government with the slogan of “improving the economy and solving the country’s problems” and supporting diplomatic programs to remove international sanctions.

On the other hand, Raisi’s government faced serious challenges due to the bankrupt economy and increasing foreign sanctions.

But in the field of foreign policy, the President’s government was able to establish better relations with Saudi Arabia, the main rival of Iran in the Islamic world.

The embassies of the two countries were reopened in Tehran and Riyadh after seven years, and diplomatic relations between these two long-time rivals were terminated.

Meanwhile, the Gaza war and Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus brought the proxy war between Iran and Israel to a critical and unprecedented stage. For the first time, Iran went to the brink of direct war with Israel and in response to Israel’s attack on its consulate, it launched 300 missiles and drones towards Israel.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdullahiyan have been died in a helicopter crash.

Iranian state television announced that there were no survivors in yesterday’s helicopter crash involving President Riyadh. While the wreckage of the helicopter was reached after 15 hours, it was stated that Raisi and Foreign Minister Abdullahiyan, Tabriz Governor Malek Rahmati and Iranian leader Khamenei’s representative in Tabriz Mohammad Ali Al-i Hashim were among those killed in the accident.

It was noted that 2 senior military officials of the Revolutionary Guards Army and 3 crew members on board Raisi’s helicopter also lost their lives in the accident.

Akıncı UAV provides support

President Raisi had flown by helicopter yesterday to attend the opening of a dam on the Iran-Azerbaijan border.

Iranian state television announced that an accident had occurred when Raisi’s helicopter made a hard landing on its way back from the region.

Search and rescue teams reported that work was continuing with difficulty due to adverse weather conditions, and that Iran had requested an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) from Turkey to conduct aerial searches.

The Akıncı UAV, which was used by Turkey in the search for the helicopter crash, had detected the heat source, believed to be the wreckage of the helicopter, and shared its coordinates with the Iranian authorities.

Iranian state television announced that there were no signs of life at the wreckage site of the helicopter carrying Iranian President Rice and Foreign Minister Abdullahiyan, which had been found by the Akıncı UAV.

First vice president takes over temporarily

Article 131 of the Iranian constitution stipulates that in the event of the death of the president or the failure to elect a new president, the first vice president, appointed by the country’s supreme leader (Ali Khamenei), will assume the powers and responsibilities of the president.

The Expediency Council, consisting of the speaker of the parliament, the head of the judiciary and the first vice-president, i.e. the heads of the legislative, executive and judicial branches, is responsible for organising the process of electing a new president within a maximum of 50 days.

Who is Ebrahim Raisi?

President Ebrahim Raisi, known as a lawyer and cleric, was born on 14 December 1960 in Mashhad, Iran.

After the 1979 revolution, Raisi began his career in 1981 as the public prosecutor of Khelet. He quickly rose through the ranks, becoming Deputy Prosecutor General of Tehran at the age of 25.

Raisi was a member of the four-man committee that decided on the execution of imprisoned opponents of the regime in 1988, on the orders of the Iranian revolutionary leader Khomeini.

After Khomeini’s death, Raisi, who rose rapidly in the state authorities during the era of Ali Khamenei, served as Tehran’s chief prosecutor between 1989 and 1994. In 1994, Raisi was appointed head of the State Supervisory Organization, a position he held for 10 years.

In 2004, Raisi was appointed First Deputy Head of the Judiciary. In 2014, Raisi was appointed as the Prosecutor General of Iran and in 2016 he was appointed by Khamenei as the President of the Imam Reza Shrine and Complex Foundation in the city of Mashhad.

Raisi, who was also a candidate in the presidential election held on 19 May 2017, lost the election to then-President Hassan Rouhani.

Raisi was appointed head of the judiciary in March 2019 after his predecessor, Ayatollah Amouli Sadeq Larijani, was dismissed by Khamenei and appointed head of the Council for the Promotion of Maslahat of the Order.

In the elections held in Iran on 18 June 2021, Raisi won by a landslide with 62% of the vote and became the 8th president of Iran. Raisi’s presidency was marked by a foreign policy that prioritised relations with neighbouring countries. During this period, relations with Saudi Arabia were re-established after 7 years.

Raisi was placed on the US sanctions list in November 2019 for his alleged role in the execution of political prisoners and the suppression of social unrest in 2009.

Ebrahim Raisi’s name has been mentioned as a possible successor to Khamenei.

Who is Hossein Amir-Abdullahiyan?

Known for his conservative identity, Hossein Amir-Abdullahiyan was born in 1964 in Damgan, Simnan Province, Iran.

He graduated from the Department of International Relations at Tehran University in 1991 and is fluent in Persian, Arabic and English. He served for a time as ambassador to Bahrain under former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Abdullahiyan, who later served as deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs under Ahmadinejad and Hassan Rouhani, became foreign minister in August 2021, succeeding former foreign minister Javad Zarif, whom he also served as deputy for three years.

Prior to becoming Foreign Minister, Abdullahiyan was Special Assistant to the Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf for International Relations.

During Abdullahiyan’s tenure as foreign minister, Iran reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia on the resumption of diplomatic relations and the mutual opening of embassies in March 2023, 7 years after tensions between Tehran and Riyadh.