What next for Iran after President Raisi's death?

 

Ebrahim Raisi stood close to the pinnacle of power in the Islamic Republic and was widely tipped to rise to its very top.

A dramatic turn dealt him a different hand.

His death in a helicopter crash on Sunday has upended the growing speculation over who will eventually replace the 85-year-old Supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose own health has long been the focus of intense interest.

The tragic fate of Iran’s hardline president is not expected to disrupt the direction of Iranian policy or jolt the Islamic Republic in any consequential way.

But it will test a system where conservative hardliners now dominate all branches of power, both elected and unelected.

“The system will make a massive show of his death and stick to constitutional procedures to show functionality, while it seeks a new recruit who can maintain conservative unity and loyalty to Khamenei,” observes Dr Sanam Vakeel, director of the Middle East and North Africa programmed at the Chatham House think tank.

Raisi's opponents will hail the exit of a former prosecutor accused of a decisive role in the mass execution of political prisoners in the 1980s which he denied; they will hope the end of his rule hastens the end of this regime.

For Iran’s ruling conservatives, the state funeral will be an occasion freighted with emotion; it will also be an opportunity to start sending their signals of continuity.

They know the world is watching.

“For 40 some years, in Western narratives, Iran was supposed to collapse and fall apart," Professor Mohammed Marandi of Tehran University told the BBC.

"But somehow, miraculously, it's still here and I predict it will still be here in years to come.”

Another critical position which must be filled is the seat held by this middle-ranking cleric on the Assembly of Experts, the body empowered to choose the new supreme leader, when that far more consequential transition comes.

“Raisi was a potential successor because, like Khamenei himself when he became supreme leader, he was relatively young, very loyal, an ideologue committed to the system who has name recognition,” says Dr Vakeel of this opaque process of selection, where a number of names are seen to be in the running including the Supreme Leader’s son Mujtaba Khamenei.

Even before Raisi’s death was officially confirmed, the Ayatollah conveyed in a post on X that “the Iranian people should not worry, there will be no disruption in the country’s affairs.”

The more immediate political challenge will be staging early presidential elections.

Power has been transferred to Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber; new elections must be held within 50 days.

This appeal to voters will come just months after March’s parliamentary elections revealed a record low turnout in a country which once prided itself on strong enthusiastic participation in this exercise.

Recent elections, including the contest in 2021 which brought Raisi to the presidency, were also marked by the systematic exclusion of moderate and pro-reform rivals by the oversight body.

“Early presidential elections could provide Khamenei and the upper echelons of the state with an opportunity to reverse that trajectory to give voters a way back into the political process,” says Mohammad Ali Shabani, editor of London-based news website Amwaj.media.

“But, unfortunately, so far we have seen no indications of the state being ready and willing to take such a step.”