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Iran started on Thursday registration of candidates for an early election next month following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told state TV.

Once seen as a possible successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s ageing ultimate decision-maker, Raisi’s sudden death has triggered a race among hardliners to influence the selection of Iran’s next leader.

After the five-day registration period, the Guardian Council, which oversees elections and legislation, will vet the candidates running for the presidency.

“The vetting process will be seven days and then qualified candidates will have almost two weeks for the election campaign,” Vahidi told state TV. The Guardian Council will publish the list of qualified candidates on June 11.

Moderate politicians have accused the 12-member hardline Guardian Council of disqualifying rivals to hardline candidates, who are expected to dominate the upcoming presidential race.

Turnout may be hit by restricted choice on the ballot and rising discontent over an array of political, social and economic crises.

Within Iran’s complex mix of clerical rulers and elected officials, Khamenei has the final say on all state matters such as nuclear and foreign policies. But the elected president will be in charge of tackling worsening economic hardship.

The registration of candidates could include Parviz Fattah, a former Guards member who heads an investment fund linked to the leader, and Saeed Jalili, a former chief nuclear negotiator who in 2001 ran Khamenei’s office for four years, insiders said.

Interim President Mohammad Mokhber and former parliament speaker and a Khamenei adviser, Ali Larijani, have also been mentioned in Iranian media as possible candidates. Larijani was barred from standing in the 2021 presidential race.

Several low-key moderate politicians are likely to enter the race.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Mourners attend a burial ceremony of the late Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi in Mashhad, Iran.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Iran’s army has so far found no evidence of criminal activity in a helicopter crash that killed the country’s president Ebrahim Raisi and seven others, state media reported.

The 63-year-old died on May 19 after his helicopter went down in the country’s mountainous northwest while returning from a dam inauguration on the border with Azerbaijan.

Also Read | Death of a President: On Iran’s Ebrahim Raisi

“No bullet holes or similar impacts were observed on the helicopter wreckage,” said a preliminary report by the general staff of the armed forces published by the official IRNA news agency late Thursday.

“The helicopter caught fire after hitting an elevated area,” it said, adding that “no suspicious content was observed during the communications between the watch tower and the flight crew.”

Raisi’s helicopter had been flying on a “pre-planned route and did not leave the designated flight path” before the crash.

The report said the wreckage of the helicopter had been found by Iranian drones early on Monday but the “complexity of the area, fog and low temperature” hindered the work of search and rescue teams.

The army said “more time is needed” to investigate the crash and that it would announce more details later.

Raisi was laid to rest in his hometown of Mashhad on Thursday concluding days of funeral ceremonies in some of Iran’s major cities including the capital attended by throngs of mourners.

Among the people killed in the incident was foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian who was also buried on Thursday in the town of Shahre Ray south of the capital.

Cars drive past a billboard bearing a portrait of Iran’s late president Ebrahim Raisi, centre, his Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, second from left, and other members of his entrourage in central Tehran on May 21, 2024, as mourners in the northestern city of Tabriz attended a funeral procession for the President and seven others who were killed with him in a helicopter accident two days ago.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Being Iran’s President is not easy. The highest elected office in the country is not the most powerful one. The President is answerable to the Supreme Leader, who is appointed by a body of senior clerics. The President’s main responsibility is to run the day-to-day affairs of the country, especially its crisis-ridden, sanctions-hit economy. The President also has to run a delicate foreign policy in a hostile region where its only national state ally is Syria, which itself has been battered by years of civil war. The President has to do a lot of balancing acts at home as well, keeping the link between popular legitimacy and clerical rule alive, while also working with the security apparatus, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), to protect Tehran’s key geopolitical interests.

Also read: A brief look at the life of Ebrahim Raisi

Ebrahim Raisi, the 63-year-old hardline cleric who became Iran’s eighth President in August 2021, was doing just that, until May 19, 2024, when he was killed in a helicopter crash. In many ways, Iran’s clerical establishment found a near-perfect leader in Raisi. He was an ideologically committed loyal servant of Iran’s theocratic system. A cleric and a close confidant of the Supreme Leader, Raisi was seen as a potential successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. And his death comes as a massive shock for the Islamic Republic.

Immediate priority

Iran faces three broad challenges in the wake of Raisi’s death. Tehran’s immediate priority is to put in place an orderly transition so that the “nation would not be disrupted at all”, as Mr. Khamenei has said. According to the Constitution, if the President is incapacitated, the First Vice-President would assume interim duties and fresh elections should be held in 50 days. Mr. Khamenei has already approved First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber as acting head of the executive branch of the state. Now, it’s the responsibility of Mr. Mokhber, parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf and Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei to hold elections within the timeframe. Authorities have already announced that elections would be held on June 28.

When Raisi became President, all branches of Iran’s government — executive, judiciary and legislature — came under the control of conservatives. In the parliamentary elections held earlier this year, conservatives retained their dominance. But what worries the establishment is the dwindling turnout. For years, Iran’s clerical leadership would use high voter turnout as a marker of legitimacy for the country’s system. If the voter turnout was 85% in the 2009 presidential elections, it fell to 48% in 2021 when Raisi was elected. When the country is preparing to hold a snap election, the establishment would like to see not just the election of another conservative as President but also a high turnout.

Larger transition

Secondly, Raisi’s abrupt death did disrupt Iran’s bigger transition plans as well. Mr. Khamenei, the most powerful man in Iran, is 85 years old and ailing. He became the Supreme Leader in 1989 when Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic died. Many Iran watchers saw Raisi as an ideal candidate to succeed Mr. Khamenei. Raisi was relatively young, ideologically committed, had the blessings of the establishment and successfully negotiated between the different branches of the state and made his standing more powerful ever since his election. But now, Iran has to start from scratch to find Mr. Khamenei’s successor. Different names are being added to the list, including Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the Supreme Leader, and Alireza Arafi, an influential white-turbaned cleric who heads Friday prayers at the Qom Shia seminary.

Regional dynamics

Lastly, Raisi’s death comes at a time when regional tensions are at an all-time high. After the Israel-Hamas war began on October 7, 2023, regional focus shifted to Iran’s support of non-state actors in West Asia, including Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis. Last month, Iran launched an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel, after its consulate in Damascus was struck and officers killed. Hezbollah, which is directly backed by Iran, is fighting a slow-burning war with Israel on its northern border. Houthis, the Yemeni militia backed by Iran, is carrying out attacks targeting vessels in the Red Sea, “in solidarity with Palestinians”.

In recent months, Iran has flexed its muscles both through its proxies and directly in the region. A change in presidency is unlikely to alter Iran’s overall security doctrine, which has been laid out by the clerical and military establishment. But for the smooth implementation of this multi-layered security strategy, which involves both state and non-state actors, in a hostile region, Iran needs a cohesive national leadership. The challenge before the Ayatollahs is to stay the political course irrespective of the disruptions.

An Iranian woman holds a poster of President Ebrahim Raisi during a mourning ceremony for him at Vali-e-Asr square in downtown Tehran, Iran, Monday, May 20, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Ebrahim Raisi, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran and a hardline cleric who many saw as a successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, died in a helicopter crash in the mountainous northwest reaches of Iran near the Azerbaijan border on May 19.

His death, along with those of Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and a few other officials, comes after Tehran launched a sizeable missile and drone attack on Israeli territory in April that was in retaliation of an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders.

Also Read: Iran helicopter crash LIVE Updates

A man whose lineage could be traced back to the Prophet Muhammed, Mr. Raisi rose through the ranks of Iran’s Shi’ite Muslim clergy and claimed key positions in the country’s judiciary before winning the 2021 Presidential election, which helped consolidate all power under the conservatives loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Mr. Raisi’s 85-year-old mentor.

Mr. Raisi’s time as President was marked by with escalating regional tensions within the Middle East, stalled talks on the revival of a nuclear deal with world powers and the anti-government protests that swept across Iran in 2022 after the death of Mahsa Amini.

Many Iranians and human rights activists have called for an investigation into his alleged role in the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988 as a part of the four-man “Death Commissions.”

Here is a brief look at the life of Ebrahim Raisi:

Ebrahim Raisi, like Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wore a black turban, which means he traced his lineage back to the Prophet Mohammed. Before being elected President in November 2021, he was the chief of Iran’s judiciary. A close ally of Mr. Khamenei, Raisi, after his controversial election victory, helped the conservatives tighten their grip on Iran’s state and society, after an eight-year period of Hassan Rouhani, the architect of Iran’s failed nuclear deal with world powers. As President, Mr. Raisi tightened crackdown at home, strengthened Iran’s ties with Russia and China and adopted a much more muscular foreign policy, which saw Tehran launching an unprecedented missile and drone attack towards Israel in April. He was seen as a potential successor to Mr. Khamenei, the most powerful man in the Islamic Republic. But such predictions did not last long.

On May 19, President Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and a few other officials were killed in a helicopter crash in the Varzaghan region of East Azerbaijan province.

Raisi’s 2017 electoral defeat did not deter him

Raisi’s rise to the top echelons of the Islamic Republic was gradual. He contested the 2017 Presidential election, with backing from the clergy, but lost to Mr. Rouhani, who then secured a second term. But the electoral defeat did not deter Raisi. In 2019, he was appointed the Chief Justice. In the same year, he was named deputy chief of the 88-member Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that will pick the next Supreme Leader when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei departs.

In the 2021 Presidential election, there were complaints that the establishment was clearly favouring Raisi. Mr. Rouhani, a popular figure among the reformists and moderates, was constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive term. Other prominent moderate candidates, former Parliament speaker Ali Larijani and outgoing Vice-President Eshaq Jahangiri, were excluded from running by the Guardian Council. The 12-member Council, which vets potential candidates, allowed only seven contestants — two low-key moderates and five hardliners — to run. Raisi was the only prominent figure on the list. Closer to the election, two more candidates dropped out, boosting Raisi’s chances. There were no surprises when the results were announced.

Born in 1960 in a village near the holy city of Mashhad, Raisi, as a teenager, studied in a Qom seminary. When Iran erupted against the rule of the Shah in the late 1970s, Raisi, like many other seminary students, liberals and leftwing activists, joined the revolution. After the Pahlavi dynasty was overthrown and Iran became an Islamic Republic, Raisi began his judicial career as a prosecutor in the city of Karaj. He moved to the capital in 1985 after he was appointed a deputy prosecutor of Tehran. It was this time Raisi got the attention of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

Raisi was a member of ‘death commission,’ set up to carry out executions

After the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, Khomeini issued secret decrees condemning thousands of political prisoners (mostly members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, a dissident group backed by Saddam Hussein that carried out attacks after Iran accepted a ceasefire, and supporters of leftist factions such as the Fedaian and the Tudeh Party) to death. Then a four-man commission, which is widely known as the “death commission”, was set up to carry out the executions. Raisi was reported to be a member of the commission. A 2019 U.S. Treasury Department release, which imposed sanctions on top Iranian officials, including Raisi, “for advancing domestic and foreign oppression”, states that “as deputy prosecutor general of Tehran, Raisi participated in a so-called ‘death commission’ that ordered the extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.” According to rights groups, including Amnesty International which released a report on the killings in 1990, thousands were killed after sham trials. Iran has never acknowledged the killings. Raisi never talked about it publicly, even during his Presidential campaigns.

Raisi held important positions in Iran’s judicial system

Always a loyal ally of the establishment, Raisi held several important positions in Iran’s judicial system. From 2004 to 2014, he was the First Deputy Chief Justice. In 2014, he was named the Attorney-General of Iran, a position which he held until 2016. Then Mr. Khamenei appointed him to run the Astan-e Quds-e Razavi (Imam Reza charity foundation), which manages a wide network of businesses and endowments. These foundations, run largely on donations or assets seized during the 1979 revolution worth billions, operate directly under the Supreme Leader. When he was appointed to the foundation, Mr. Khamenei called Raisi a “trustworthy person with high-profile experience”, a rare praise from the Supreme Leader that fuelled speculations that the Ayatollah could be grooming him as a potential successor.

Raisi’s answer to Iran’s myriad problems was ‘maximum resistance’

Raisi assumed Presidency at a critical juncture for Iran. The country’s economy, battered by sanctions, was facing serious challenges. The nuclear deal, which promised removal of sanctions and economic prosperity, had fallen apart. Large-scale protests broke out across the country after Mahsa Amini, 22, died after she was arrested for not following the country’s strict hijab rules. Raisi backed a crackdown on the protests instead of caving in to pressure. Diplomacy took a backseat during his tenure as Iran stepped up its nuclear programme, started shipping weapons to Russia, and doubled down on its support for non-state militias across West Asia such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Shia Mobilisation Units. Maximum resistance was Raisi’s answer to the myriad problems Iran was facing. And in Iran’s clergy-dominated complex power theatre where traditionalists and moderates compete for power and influence, Raisi emerged as a strong President who has the backing of the clerical establishment.

Raisi’s death will cause vacuum in Iran’s politics

Raisi’s death will leave a vacuum in Iran’s religious-politico system. In recent years, Iran, unlike any other country, has lost several high profile figures. In January 2020, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a charismatic military commander, was assassinated by the U.S. in Baghdad in an air strike. In November that year, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated in the outskirts of Tehran, reportedly by Israel. After the Hamas-Israel war began on October 7, 2023, Iran lost several senior military leaders, including Mohammed Reza Zahedi, who was in charge of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ operations in Syria and Lebanon. These losses pale in comparison with the death of the President and the Foreign Minister. This is the first time the Islamic Republic is losing a President, sitting or former, to such an accident.

While details are yet to emerge about the crash, the existing geopolitical tensions could fuel speculations about the accident. Iran has to quickly ascertain the reasons behind the crash, and put in place an orderly transition, which involves an election within weeks, so that the country’s normal operations would not be affected by the President’s death.