May 21, 2024
Iran’s
president, foreign minister, and several other high-level officials lost their
lives on Sunday, when their helicopter crashed in a mountainous area in
northwest Iran.
Iranian
President Ebrahim Raisi was an ultra-hardliner who had been handpicked in 2021
by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to be Iran’s president. Before his
election, Raisi had a long career in the judiciary and a notorious and
well-documented track record for violating the human rights of the Iranian
people.
Raisi played an
important role in the execution of nearly 4,000 political prisoners during the
summer of 1988. As Tehran Prosecutor from 1989 to 1994, he arrested and
prosecuted leading nationalist-religious figures, who had played important
roles in the 1979 Revolution. During the Green Movement of 2009 to 2010, when
Raisi was serving as the principal deputy of the judiciary chief, he declared
that the demonstrators should be executed and played an important role in the
crackdown in the aftermath of the movement.
As the
Prosecutor of the “Special Court for the Clergy” — an unconstitutional and
extra-judicial court — from 2012, he persecuted dissident clerics opposed to
Khamenei’s rule. And after demonstrations broke out in Iran in September of
2022 in the aftermath of the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who had lost
her life while in detention, Raisi took a hard line against demonstrators.
The economic
performance of the Raisi administration over the past three years has been
dismal. He was not able to deliver on any of his promises, from reducing
rampant inflation (estimated to hover around 50%) to building 4 million new
houses for low-income people.
In foreign
policy, Raisi had promised that his administration would negotiate with the
United States regarding a return to the nuclear agreement, officially known as
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, but his hardline approach was not
successful, and the negotiations stalled. Thus, aside from his hardline
supporters, who make up about 10 to 15% of the population, hardly anyone will
shed any tears for him.
Raisi’s death
will nevertheless contribute to the complex dynamics of Iran’s internal
politics, including the fierce power struggle among various conservative and
moderate factions.
The most
important issue facing Iran, and particularly the conservatives, is who will
succeed Khamenei as the next supreme leader. He is 85 years old and has been
known for years to be ill, although the Western press has at times exaggerated
the extent of his illness.
In 2016,
Khamenei appointed Raisi to the highly important post of Chairman of Astan Quds
Razavi in Mashhad, placing him in control of the shrine of Imam Reza, Shia
Islam’s 8th Imam, and its vast assets, totaling tens of billions of dollars.
Many interpreted that decision as a signal that Raeisi would be a candidate for
succeeding Khamenei.
The plausibility
of the interpretation was strengthened when, immediately after Raisi’s
appointment, senior officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
visited Raisi in Mashhad, treating him as a sort of future national leader.
That was the first sign that Raisi was rising among the hardliners. With the
support of Khamenei and his son, Mojtaba — a shadowy figure whom many also
consider as another potential successor to his father — Raisi ran in the
presidential elections in 2017 but lost badly to former President Hasan
Rouhani.
Raisi’s main
base of support was in the Jebheh Paydari Enghelab-e Eslami (JPEE) [the Front
of Stability of Islamic Revolution], who are followers of the reactionary and
hardline cleric Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi (1935-2021). Although they have
always professed their loyalty to Khamenei, over the past several years
fissures have emerged between the JPEE and those who are close to the beit-e
rahbari – the office of the supreme leader – and Mojtaba Khamenei, who plays a
key role in it.
These fissures
became more transparent in the most recent elections for the Majles (Iran’s
parliament), held in March of this year, when the younger Khamenei’s
father-in-law, who is close to the supreme leader, criticized the JPEE, as did
some of the mouthpieces of the IRGC.
The recent
Majles elections were held simultaneously with those for the Assembly of
Experts, a constitutional body whose most important task is to elect the new
supreme leader. By vetting the candidates, the hardliners prevented moderate
clerics, such as Rouhani, from running in those elections. This set the stage
for a succession showdown between various hardline factions, namely, supporters
of Mojtaba Khamenei, Raisi, and perhaps a dark horse candidate like
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Eje’i, the hardline judiciary chief who recently
criticized Raisi implicitly over economic corruption.
Some in Iran
believe that helping Raisi to become Iran’s President was in fact a trap set
for him by the younger Khamenei to showcase Raisi’s incompetence. Indeed, the
dismal performance of Iran’s economy under Raisi — coupled with his
administration’s poor planning and rampant corruption — would have severely
complicated his chances of becoming supreme leader.
According to the
Islamic Republic’s constitution, national elections should be held to elect the
next president within 50 days of Raisi’s death.
Only 30 to 40%
of eligible voters participated in the recent Majles elections, a low turnout
that has alarmed many, even among the regime’s supporters, since the ruling
elite had always interpreted the high turnout of voters in the past national
elections as a sign of legitimacy of its political system. The question is,
will Khamenei use the opportunity of Raisi’s death to allow for more open
elections with the hope of shoring up his regime’s legitimacy?
In addition,
given Raisi’s deep unpopularity among the masses, his funeral and the upcoming
elections may provide an opportunity for the Iranian people to once again
demonstrate their frustrations with the terrible state of the economy, as well
as social and political repression.
Given that the
most important reason for Raisi’s rise to the presidency was his loyalty to
Khamenei, who will be the latter’s candidate in the upcoming elections? There
is no shortage of candidates among the hardliners, but none can advance without
Khamenei’s support, and it is not yet clear who will have his backing.
Finally, how
will Raisi’s death affect the question of a successor to Khamenei? Will new
candidates emerge? Will Raisi’s death lead to the possibility of a more
moderate successor to Khamenei? What will be the role of the IRGC in selecting
the successor?
Given Iran’s
complex political dynamics, these are not easy questions to address. But,
particularly at a time when the war in Gaza is continuing and Iran’s shadowy
war with Israel has come into the open, there is no question that what happens
in Iran will have repercussions for the entire Middle East.
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