Who runs Iran now? What happens when a president dies in office

After the death of President Raisi in a helicopter crash, who will assume power as his replacement, and for how long?

Iraqis light candles for Iran's late president Ebrahim Raisi (pictured) outside the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. Picture: Ahmad Al-Rubaye, via AFP

Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, assured the nation that the accident which killed President Raisi would not “interrupt” the work of the state. That task, in the interim, now falls to Mohammad Mokhber, a regime apparatchik and the first vice-president.

In truth, however, Raisi’s death has upended Khamanei’s possible succession plans, as well as the election due next year that Raisi was expected to comfortably win after any serious rivals were again barred from running.

A year after Raisi’s election in 2021, the security services responded harshly to protests led by women demonstrating against strict Islamic regulations. Picture: UGC, via AFP

It comes at a sensitive time for the unpopular regime, which periodically finds itself putting down mass disorder with brute force. A year after Raisi’s election in 2021, the security services responded harshly to protests led by women demonstrating against strict Islamic regulations.

Raisi, a hardline jurist who is sanctioned by the United States for sending thousands of political prisoners to their deaths in 1988, responded in a characteristic manner to the protests, which resulted in thousands of protesters and critics being arrested. Some, like the rapper Toomaj Salehi, have been sentenced to death.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during the inauguration ceremony for Ebrahim Raisi as President, in August 2021. Picture: Khameei.Ir, via AFP

In these circumstances, many voters stayed away from the polls in April’s parliamentary elections after a majority of reformist candidates were barred. The elections recorded the lowest turnout in the republic’s history, but the coming presidential elections may beat even that.

It is not clear who will emerge as Khamenei’s choice for president, but it will be hard to replace Raisi, who came to power after the eight-year term of the pragmatic Hassan Rouhani.

Under Raisi, the hardliners consolidated their day-to-day influence over government. “He had support from the key constituencies: the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, the clerics, the hardliners. He was a team player,” said Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Chatham House think tank.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Picture: Khamenei.Ir, via AFP

More importantly, Raisi was a strong contender to succeed Khamenei, who is 85 and has been supreme leader since 1989, when Ayatollah Khamenei, the regime’s founder, died.

“Raisi was a good candidate because he fit Khamenei’s bill,” said Vakil. “It means there are other scenarios now.”

Those could include another rumoured candidate, Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, who has nothing approaching Raisi’s credentials and experience.

Raisi’s death will, though, have little bearing on foreign policy, which is run by Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who oversee a network of allies and proxies in the region that have turned Tehran into a Middle East power. However, they have lost a kindred spirit, and at a time when their policies both at home and abroad are increasingly reviled by Iranians.

The Times