The President presented the names of the new 19-member cabinet including one woman. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian presented his Cabinet to parliament on Sunday (August 11, 2024), notably including a woman and a Western-friendly diplomat as the country’s Foreign Minister.

Parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced the names of the 19-member Cabinet presented by the President during an Assembly session broadcast live on state television.

For the post of Foreign Minister, Mr. Pezeshkian has named Abbas Araghchi, a 61-year-old career diplomat who has led nuclear negotiations since 2013.

Known for his openness to the West, he played a pivotal role in the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers that was torpedoed three years later by the United States’ decision to withdraw from it.

Mr. Pezeshkian has also nominated one woman, Farzaneh Sadegh, who would become only the second Iranian woman to hold a ministerial post since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979. The 48-year-old is set to head the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development.

The reformist President has named as his future Interior Minister General Eskandar Momeni, a 60-year-old police commander and former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

General Aziz Nasirzadeh, a former commander of the Iranian Air Force and deputy chief of staff of the armed forces since 2021, is set to take the helm of the Defence Ministry.

The President has chosen as his future Oil Minister Mohsen Paknezhad, a 58-year-old executive director with a long career in the country’s energy industry.

Parliament is set to begin reviewing candidates on Monday (August 11, 2024) and submit them to a vote by lawmakers starting Saturday (August 10, 2024).

In late July, Mr. Pezeshkian had announced that he would “consult and coordinate” with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, to present the final list of ministers. In Iran, the vote of confidence is performed by each minister individually, rather than the government as a whole.

On Saturday (August 10, 2024), the president kept in his position the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Mohammad Eslami, who has held the post since 2021.

Mr. Eslami was placed on a sanctions list by the United States and the European Union in 2008, when he was deputy defence minister.

Mr. Pezeshkian, who took office in late July, had advocated during the election campaign to open Iran up to the world, vowing to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement and ease sanctions on the Islamic republic.

But the president has limited powers, and is tasked with implementing state policies outlined by Ayatollah Khamenei, 85, who has held the post since 1989.

Iran’s President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian, left, sits next to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. File
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei gave his official endorsement to reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s ninth president on July 28, following elections earlier this month.

In a message read by the director of Mr. Khamenei’s office, he said: “I endorse the vote (for) the wise, honest, popular and scholarly Mr. Pezeshkian, and I am appointing him as the president of the Islamic Republic of Iran.” The new president is due to be sworn in before parliament on Tuesday.

This undated handout image, released by the office of the Iranian President on July 6, 2024, shows the reformist Masoud Pezeshkian who became the ninth president of Iran with 16,384,403 votes.
| Photo Credit: Office of the Iranian President via Getty Images

Iranians have picked reformist Masoud Pezeshkian as the Islamic republic’s next President in a election to replace Ebrahim Raisi who was killed in a helicopter crash in May.

Mr. Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon, won the largest number of votes in the run-off against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, taking around 16 million votes or 54% of about 30 million cast.

He rode on support from the country’s main reformist coalition and many Iranians who feared a continued hardline grip on power.

Pezeshkian’s promises

In campaigning, Mr. Pezeshkian called for “constructive relations” with Western countries to “get Iran out of its isolation”.

He pledged to try to revive a 2015 nuclear deal with the United States and other powers, which imposed curbs on Iran’s nuclear activity in return for sanctions relief.

The deal collapsed in 2018 after Washington withdrew from it.

Within Iran, he vowed to ease long-standing Internet restrictions and to “fully” oppose police patrols enforcing the mandatory headscarf on women, a high-profile issue since the death in police custody in 2022 of Mahsa Amini.

The 22-year-old Iranian Kurd had been detained for an alleged breach of the dress code, and her death sparked months of deadly unrest nationwide.

Mr. Pezeshkian also pledged to involve more women and ethnic minorities such as Kurds and Baluchis in his government.

He has also promised to reduce inflation, now hovering at around 40%, which he says has “crushed the nation’s back” in recent years.

In one debate with Mr. Jalili, Mr. Pezeshkian estimated that Iran needs $200 billion in foreign investment, which he said could only be provided by mending ties across the world.

The powers he holds

Unlike in many countries, Iran’s President is not head of state, and the ultimate authority rests with the supreme leader — a post held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for 35 years.

As president, Mr. Pezeshkian will hold the second-highest ranking position and will have influence over both domestic and foreign policy.

Setting economic policy will be within his powers.

However, he will have limited power over the police, and virtually none over the Army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military’s ideological arm.

The police, the Army and the IRGC all answer directly to the supreme leader.

Mr. Pezeshkian will be tasked with implementing state policies outlined by Mr. Khamenei.

People’s expectations from him

Iranians have mixed feelings towards Mr. Pezeshkian’s victory, with some expressing happiness and others sceptical.

“We really needed a literate president to solve the economic problems of the people,” said Abolfazl, a 40-year-old architect from Tehran who asked only his first name be used.

But Rashed, a 40-year-old barber, said Mr. Pezeshkian’s win “doesn’t matter”, and believed the “situation will only get worse”.

Maziar Khosravi, a political analyst and journalist, said the new President “did not promise an immediate resolution to problems” in Iran.

“People voted for him because they realised his approach was about interacting with the world, which was completely different from the current government,” he said.

Political commentator Mossadegh Mossadeghpoor said people are cautiously “hopeful that he can make some good changes and resolve some of the country’s issues”, especially the economy.

Challenges lying ahead

Analysts say Mr. Pezeshkian will face serious challenges because conservatives still dominate state institutions.

One such institution is parliament, which was elected in March and is dominated by conservatives and ultraconservatives.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who ran in the first round of the election, backed Mr. Jalili in the run-off.

Two other ultraconservatives who dropped out a day before the first round also backed Mr. Jalili.

“Dealing with the issue of hijab or any other ideological matter is out of the hands of the President,” Mossadeghpoor said, noting that this is a religious matter.

Ali Vaez of the International Crisis group says Mr. Pezeshkian will face an uphill battle to secure “social and cultural rights at home and diplomatic engagement abroad”.

On the nuclear issue, Mossadeghpoor said Mr. Pezeshkian may be able to “resolve it if it is the system’s will”.

Diplomatic efforts to revive the 2015 deal with Washington and Europe have faltered over the years.

“No one should expect Iran’s approach to foreign policy to fundamentally change,” said Khosravi.

Iran’s presidential election came amid heightened regional tensions over the Gaza war between Israel and Tehran’s ally Hamas, which has drawn in other Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

Mossadeghpoor says Mr. Pezeshkian will “neither reduce Iran’s missile capabilities, nor will he stop supporting resistance front groups”.

Hard-line former Iranian senior nuclear negotiator and candidate for the presidential election Saeed Jalili casts his ballot in a polling station, in Tehran, Iran, on June 28, 2024. Iranians are voting in a snap election to replace the late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi.
| Photo Credit: AP

Early, seesawing results released Saturday in Iran’s presidential election put the race between reformist Masoud Pezeshkian and hard-liner Saeed Jalili, with the lead trading between the two men while a runoff vote appeared likely.

The early results, reported by Iranian state television, did not initially put either man in a position to win Friday’s election outright, potentially setting the stage for a runoff election to replace the late President Ebrahim Raisi.

It also did not offer any turnout figures for the race yet — a crucial component of whether Iran’s electorate backs its Shiite theocracy after years of economic turmoil and mass protests.

After counting over 12 million votes, Mr. Pezeshkian had 5.3 million while Mr. Jalili held 4.8 million.

Another candidate, hard-line speaker of the parliament Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, had some 1.6 million votes. Shiite cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi had more than 95,000 votes.

Voters faced a choice between the three hard-line candidates and the little-known reformist Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon. As has been the case since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women and those calling for radical change have been barred from running, while the vote itself will have no oversight from internationally recognised monitors.

The voting came as wider tensions have gripped the Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

In April, Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel over the war in Gaza, while militia groups that Tehran arms in the region — such as the Lebanese Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — are engaged in the fighting and have escalated their attacks.

Meanwhile, Iran continues to enrich uranium at near weapons-grade levels and maintains a stockpile large enough to build — should it choose to do so — several nuclear weapons.

There had been calls for a boycott, including from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi. Mir Hossein Mousavi, one of the leaders of the 2009 Green Movement protests who remains in house arrest, also has refused to vote with his wife, his daughter said.

There’s also been criticism that Mr. Pezeshkian represents just another government-approved candidate. One woman in a documentary on Mr. Pezeshkian aired by state TV said her generation was “moving toward the same level” of animosity with the government that Mr. Pezeshkian’s generation had in the 1979 revolution.

Iranian law requires that a winner gets more than 50% of all votes cast. If that doesn’t happen, the race’s top two candidates will advance to a runoff a week later. There’s been only one runoff presidential election in Iran’s history: in 2005, when hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad bested former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The 63-year-old Raisi died in the May 19 helicopter crash that also killed the country’s foreign minister and others. He was seen as a protégé of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and a potential successor. Still, many knew him for his involvement in the mass executions that Iran conducted in 1988, and for his role in the bloody crackdowns on dissent that followed protests over the death of Amini, a young woman detained by police over allegedly improperly wearing the mandatory headscarf, or hijab.

Massoud Pezeshkian.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Iranians broadly deplore Western sanctions that have battered the economy, but the country’s six presidential candidates offer differing solutions — assuming the winner gets a say on foreign policy.

With the June 28 snap election fast approaching, debates between the candidates vying for Iran’s second-highest office have featured a key question: should Tehran mend ties with the West?

Under the late President Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash, Western governments have expanded sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme as well as its support for militant groups across West Asia and for Russia in its war in Ukraine. The sanctions have sharply reduced Iran’s oil revenues, heavily restricted trade and contributed to soaring inflation, high unemployment and a record low for the Iranian rial against the U.S. dollar.

In two televised debates focused on the economy ahead of the presidential polls, “almost all the candidates explained that the sanctions have had devastating effects”, said Fayyaz Zahed, a professor of international relations at the University of Tehran.

While the six contenders — five conservatives and a sole reformist — have all vowed to tackle the economic hardships, they offered varying views on Iran’s relations with the West. “If we could lift the sanctions, Iranians could live comfortably,” said reformist candidate Massoud Pezeshkian, considered one of three frontrunners.

Mr. Pezeshkian, who is backed by key reformist groups in Iran, called for “constructive relations” with Washington and European capitals in order to “get Iran out of its isolation”.

Meanwhile, ultraconservative candidate Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, has called for Tehran to press ahead with its long-running anti-Western policy. “The international community is not made up of just two or three Western countries,” Mr. Jalili has repeatedly said in debates and campaign rallies.

After Iran mourned president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a recent helicopter crash, the nation’s focus turns to an election next month for his successor, with the conservative camp seeking a loyalist to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The lead-up to the early vote on June 28 has opened up the field to a broad range of hopefuls from all political parties. The big question for them is how many candidacies will survive the vetting process in the Islamic republic.

Ultraconservative Raisi, who had more than a year left of his first term, died on May 19 alongside his foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and six others when their helicopter crashed into a fog-shrouded mountainside.

They were laid to rest in multi-day funeral rites drawing mass crowds of mourners.

The June vote will be held during a turbulent time, as the Gaza war rages between Iran’s arch-foe Israel and Tehran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas, and amid continued diplomatic tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Iran also faces sustained economic hardship, exacerbated by tough international sanctions reimposed after the United States withdrew from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal, and in the aftermath of widespread anti-government protests.

Mr. Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, has assigned Raisi’s vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, 68, to assume interim duties for the next few weeks and organise the June election.

Media reports suggest Mr. Mokhber himself plans to run for Iran’s second-highest post, as do parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and several prominent former officials.

Among other hopefuls, ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili was one of the first to announce his candidacy.

Other contenders include moderate former foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, and centrist Ali Larijani, who served as the speaker in parliament.

Populist ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has so far kept voters guessing and said he is “checking the conditions to decide whether to register”.

“We have to wait for positive developments in the country,” he added.

Vetting process

Iran was rocked from late 2022 by nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, following her arrest in Tehran over an alleged breach of the strict dress code for women.

Hundreds of people including dozens of security personnel were killed and thousands were arrested.

Political expert Abbas Abdi told the reformist newspaper Hammihan that if Iran’s “protesting community” sees an opportunity for change, it “will show its protest, activism and responsibility through participating in the election”.

He said that he was “sure that the reformists will win with a huge margin”, but only if they are allowed to participate — a major concern after many candidates were disqualified ahead of recent elections.

Mr. Abdi added that if the authorities permit a broad spectrum of candidates to run this time, “it will create the necessary hope in the people and lead to high participation”.

Under Iran’s election process, candidates will have several days to formally register, starting on May 30.

The final list, however, will depend on the outcome of the validation process by the conservative-dominated Guardian Council following a June 3 registration deadline.

The 12-member body, which is in charge of overseeing elections, had previously barred many candidates, among them Ahmadinejad and Larijani.

Recent parliamentary and presidential elections have seen plunging turnout, despite efforts by the authorities to encourage people to vote.

Ahead of Iran’s parliamentary elections held on March 1, the Guardian Council disqualified tens of thousands of candidates.

With many of them reformists and moderates, the vetting effectively helped Iran’s conservative and ultraconservative politicians tighten their grip on power.

The March legislative vote saw the lowest turnout since 1979.

Low voter turnout

The 2021 election that brought Raisi to power also saw many reformist and moderate figures disqualified from the race, and the turnout hit a record low for any presidential polls in Iran.

During his years in office, Raisi faced a barrage of criticism from former officials and activists, including over his handling of an already fragile economy.

Raging inflation, rampant unemployment and record currency depreciation dogged Raisi’s presidency, while his government failed to clinch a deal with Washington to revive the nuclear deal and lift sanctions.

He also faced criticism for the government’s handling of the street protests sparked by Amini’s death.

More recently, spillover from the Gaza war saw tensions with Israel skyrocket and climax in mid-April when Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack against Israel.

Iranian forces and allied groups unleashed hundreds of drones and missiles, most of which were intercepted by Israel and its partners.

Amid all the turmoil, Iran’s leaders have urged a calm election process.

On Monday, the new parliament started its first session with a message from Khamenei calling on the lawmakers to keep away from “useless media contests and harmful political controversies”.

Iran’s acting President Mohammad Mokhber addresses during the opening ceremony of a new parliament term, in Tehran, Iran, on May 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran’s acting President Mohammad Mokhber addressed the country’s new parliament on May 27 in his first public speech since last week’s helicopter crash that killed his predecessor and seven others.

His speech comes as Iran prepares for a Presidential election to replace the late Ebrahim Raisi in just a month, a vote that could see the previously behind-the-scenes bureaucrat potentially run alongside others. Meanwhile, Iran’s new hard-line parliament is expected to select its new speaker Tuesday.

Also read: How will Iran President’s death impact the region? | Explained

In his remarks, Mr. Mokhber praised Raisi’s time in office, noting that Iran’s crude oil production— a key source of hard currency for the country — climbed to more than 3.6 million barrels a day. That comes after Oil Minister Javad Owji said Sunday that Iran was now exporting around 2 million barrels a day, despite Western sanctions targeting the Islamic Republic.

Mr. Mokhber also asserted that the country’s economy remained stable under Raisi when Iran took military actions in Iraq, Israel and Pakistan in recent months.

“Three countries were hit. We hit Israel, people find that figures and indexes are the same in the morning when they wake up, price of hard currency is the same, inflation is the same, liquidity is the same and the market is full of people’s needs,” Mokhber claimed. “This strength, this settlement and this power is not a usual thing, they all were because of guidance by the supreme leader and the sincere efforts of Ayatollah Raisi.”

The Iranian rial has tumbled from a rate of 32,000 rials to $1 at the time of Tehran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Today, it stands around 580,000 to $1 in the wake of the U.S.’ unilateral withdrawal from the accord and a series of attacks on shipping in the Mideast, first attributed to Iran and later involving Yemen’s Houthi rebels as Israel’s war against Hamas on the Gaza Strip began over seven months ago.

On May 20, rescuers recovered the bodies of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others in a mountainous region in northwestern Iran following a fatal helicopter crash.

Iran will hold presidential elections on June 28 to replace Raisi. On Thursday, a five-day registration period for candidates will open. Analysts have suggested that Mokhber could be one of those to register.

Meanwhile, Monday marked the first day for Iran’s newly elected parliament, following a March election that saw the country’s lowest turnout since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Of those elected to the 290-seat body, hard-liners hold over 230 seats, according to an Associated Press survey.

Iran’s parliament plays a secondary role in governing the country, though it can intensify pressure on a presidential administration when deciding on the annual budget and other important bills. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, has the final say in all important state matters.

The story so far: The death of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s President, and eight others, including Foreign Minister Amir Abdollahian, in a helicopter crash on May 19, has sent shockwaves across the region. The timing of the accident was significant. Tensions remain high in West Asia, particularly after Iran launched its first direct attack on Israel in April. The war in Gaza rages on with Iran backing Hamas and other anti-Israel non-state militants in the region. At home, the regime has seen growing protests in recent years. And now, Iran has to elect a new President amid this uncertainty.

How important was Raisi?

In Iran’s semi-representative theocratic system, the role of the elected president is limited compared to that of the Supreme Leader, who is appointed by a clerical body. The President’s primary responsibility is to run the day-to-day affairs of the government, while critical policies and long-term strategies are set by the Supreme Leader (read ‘the establishment’). But the President and his government have a say on how to implement these policies.

In the past, Iran has seen friction between the establishment and the Presidents as they tried to champion their agenda. But in Raisi, who was elected President in 2021, the establishment found a staunch ally who hardly strayed from the line set by the Supreme Leader. Raisi oversaw a marked shift from the Hassan Rouhani years when Iran pursued dialogue with the West and reached a nuclear deal in 2015 (which was sabotaged by the U.S. in 2018). During Raisi’s tenure, Iran sought closer strategic and economic cooperation with Russia and China, doubled down on its support for the so-called ‘axis of resistance’ (non-state actors such as Hamas, Houthis and Hezbollah) and expanded the country’s nuclear programme. Tehran also adopted a more aggressive policy towards Israel, which saw the April 14 drone and missile attack.

Will his death alter Iran’s policies?

The President’s death is unlikely to bring in any serious change to Iran’s foreign policy. But it is highly likely that the regime’s focus would shift to the transition at home. Even before Raisi’s death was formally announced, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Iranians that governance would not be disrupted. The message from the Supreme Leader is that the system reigns supreme, not individuals, and the status quo prevails. Iran has lost several high profile officials in recent years, from Qassem Soleimani, the charismatic Quds Force General, to Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the country’s top nuclear scientist. But the loss of key figures does not affect the national project.

However, Raisi’s death poses two succession challenges to Iran’s leaders. One, it has to quickly elect the next President. The second challenge is to identify a potential successor to Mr. Khamenei. In the past, different influential clerics were seen as his prospective successors, such as Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi. Rafsanjani died in 2017 and Shahroudi in 2018. In recent years, Raisi, a hardline cleric, an elected President and a former judicial chief, was seen as a potential successor. His death leaves a huge void in the corridors of power in Tehran.

What does Raisi’s death mean for India?

India has built a good relationship with Iran since the revolution of 1979. Even though trade ties have taken a beating in recent years, owing to American sanctions on Iran, both sides stayed invested in the overall bilateral partnership. One good example of this partnership is the Chabahar port project where India has made investments worth millions. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar had attended Raisi’s inauguration in August 2021. In January, Mr. Jaishankar travelled again to Tehran to meet its leaders at a time when Houthis, the Iran-backed Yemeni Shia militants, were carrying out attacks against vessels in the Red Sea. India had refused to join a U.S.-led coalition to attack the Houthis.

Earlier this month, India signed a long-term agreement to further develop and operate one of the two terminals of the Chabahar port, formalising a deal that has been in the works for years. On May 20, a day after the accident, Mr. Jaishankar said India and Iran reached the Chabahar agreement “because of the interest and initiative” of President Raisi and Foreign Minister Abdollahian. India was careful not to take a direct position in the West Asian crisis. When tensions broke out between Iran and Israel, India expressed deep concerns but stopped short of condemning any party. The fact that India sent Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar to Tehran to offer condolences shows that retaining the current momentum in ties remains a priority for New Delhi.

Mourners attend the funeral of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi, in Tehran on May 22, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Iran on May 23 prepared to inter its late President at the holiest site for Shiite Muslims in the Islamic Republic, a final sign of respect for a protege of Iran’s supreme leader killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week.

President Ebrahim Raisi’s burial at the Imam Reza Shrine in Mashhad caps days of processionals through much of Iran, seeking to bolster the country’s theocracy after the crash killing him, the country’s Foreign Minister and six others.

However, the services have not drawn the same crowd as those who gathered for services for Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani in 2020, slain by a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

It’s a potential sign of the public’s feelings about Raisi’s presidency that saw the government harshly crack down on all dissent during protests over the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, detained for allegedly not wearing her mandatory headscarf to authorities’ liking.

That crackdown, as well as Iran’s struggling economy, have gone unmentioned in the hours of coverage provided by state television and in newspapers. Also never discussed was Raisi’s involvement in the mass execution of an estimated 5,000 dissidents at the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

Prosecutors have warned people against showing any public signs of celebrating Raisi’s death and a heavy security force presence has been seen in Tehran since the crash.

On May 23 morning, thousands in black gathered along a main boulevard in the city of Birjand, Raisi’s hometown in Iran’s South Khorasan Province along the Afghan border. A semitruck bore his casket down the street, with mourners reaching out to touch it and tossing scarves and other items to be placed against it for a blessing. A sign on the truck read, “This is the shrine.” Later, Raisi will be buried at the Imam Reza Shrine, where Shiite Islam’s 8th imam is buried. The region, for long, has been associated with Shiite pilgrimmage. A hadith attributed to Islam’s Prophet Mohammad saysm anyone with sorrow or sin will be relieved through by visiting there.

In 2016, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei appointed Raisi to run the Imam Reza charity foundation, which manages a vast conglomerate of businesses and endowments in Iran, as well as oversees the shrine. It is one of many bonyads, or charitable foundations, fuelled by donations or assets seized after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

These foundations offer no public accounting of their spending and answer only to Iran’s supreme leader. The Imam Reza charity, known as “Astan-e Quds-e Razavi” in Farsi, is believed to be one of the biggest in the country. Analysts estimate its worth at tens of billions of dollars as it owns almost half the land in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city.

Raisi will be the first top politician in the country to be buried at the shrine, which represents a major honor for the cleric.

The death of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others in the crash on Sunday comes at a politically sensitive moment for Iran, both at home and abroad.

Raisi, who was 63, had been discussed as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Khamenei. None of Iran’s living past presidents — other than Khamenei, who was President from 1981 until 1989 — could be seen in state television footage of Wednesday’s prayers. The authorities gave no explanation for their apparent absence.

Iran has set June 28 as the next presidential election. For now, there’s no clear favorite for the position among Iran’s political elite — particularly no one who is a Shiite cleric, like Raisi. Acting President Mohammad Mokhber, a relatively unknown first vice president until Sunday’s crash, has stepped into his role and even attended a meeting between Khamenei and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on May 22.

File picture of Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
| Photo Credit: AP

Iran’s supreme leader presided over a funeral Wednesday for the country’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a helicopter crash.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them. On the late President Ebrahim Raisi’s coffin sat a black turban — signifying his direct descendence from Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Mr. Khamenei said in the standard prayer for the dead in Arabic, the language of Islam’s holy book, the Quran. He soon left and the crowd inside rushed to the front, reaching out to touch the coffins. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly wept during the service.

People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders, with chants outside of “Death to America!” They loaded them onto a semitruck trailer for a procession through downtown Tehran to Azadi, or “Freedom,” Square, where Raisi gave speeches in the past.

In attendance were top leaders of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, one of the country’s major power centers. Also on hand was Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, the militant group that Iran has armed and supported during the ongoing Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip. Before the funeral, Mr. Haniyeh spoke and an emcee led the crowd in the chant: “Death to Israel!”

“I come in the name of the Palestinian people, in the name of the resistance factions of Gaza… to express our condolences,” Mr. Haniyeh told those gathered.

He also recounted meeting Raisi in Tehran during Ramadan, the holy Muslim fasting month, and heard the president say the Palestinian issue remains the key one of the Muslim world.

The Muslim world “must fulfil their obligations to the Palestinians to liberate their land,” Mr. Haniyeh said, recounting Raisi’s words. He also described Raisi calling the October 7 attack that sparked the war, which saw 1,200 people killed and 250 others taken hostage, an “earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity.” The war since has seen 35,000 Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip and hundreds of others in the West Bank in Israeli operations.

Also expected to attend services in Tehran were Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and a delegation from the Taliban of Afghanistan, including their Foreign Minister Amir Khan Mutaqqi.

Iran’s theocracy declared five days of mourning over Sunday’s crash, encouraging people to attend the public mourning sessions. Typically, government employees and schoolchildren attend such events en masse, while others take part out of patriotism, curiosity or to witness historic events.

For Iran’s Shiite theocracy, mass demonstrations have been crucial to demonstrating the legitimacy of their leadership since millions thronged the streets of Tehran to welcome Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 during the Islamic Revolution, and also attended his funeral 10 years later.

An estimated 1 million turned out in 2020 for processions for the late Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad. In that ceremony, Khamenei openly wept over Soleimani’s casket alongside Raisi. On Wednesday, Khamenei appeared composed, though he later hugged family members of the dead on his way out.

Whether Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and others draw the same crowd remains in question, particularly as Raisi died in a helicopter crash, won his office in the lowest-turnout presidential election in the country’s history and presided over sweeping crackdowns on all dissent.

Prosecutors already have warned people over showing any public signs of celebrating his death and a heavy security force presence has been seen on the streets of Tehran since the crash.

Raisi, 63, had been discussed as a possible successor for Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Mr. Khamenei. His death now throws that selection into question, particularly as there is no heir-apparent cleric for the presidency ahead of planned June 28 elections.