With the surprise death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on Sunday, Iran’s first vice president has stepped into the vacant position, at least for now.
As acting president under the Islamic Republic’s constitution, Mohammad Mokhber, 68, will form a three-person council – along with the speaker of parliament and the head of the judiciary – that will organize a new presidential election.
While it is unclear in the long term who will replace Raisi, a hardline protégé of the country’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the constitution stipulates that elections must be held within 50 days of the president’s death.
Born on September 1, 1955, Mokhber had previously been sanctioned by the West for “nuclear activities” and also agreed to supply Russia with a deadly arsenal of drones to pressure its continued invasion of Ukraine.
Like Raisi, Mokhber is seen as close to Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state and who today tasked Mokhber with organizing the elections.
He became first vice president in 2021, when Raisi was elected president after a carefully orchestrated election, in which Khamenei obtained the desired result.
Under the Islamic Republic’s constitution, Mohammad Mokhber (pictured September 2023), 68, will form a three-person council – along with the speaker of parliament and the head of the judiciary – that will organize a new presidential election .
But with Raisi’s death, any plans that may have involved him succeeding Khamenei as Iran’s supreme leader will have to be dismantled and redesigned.
Mokhber is likely to be among the front-runners to fill the vacant seat.
In addition to now being Iran’s acting president, the 68-year-old is also a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, an administrative assembly appointed by Khamenei, first created in 1988.
While it was initially created to resolve conflicts between different branches of the Iranian government, its true power comes from its advisory role to the Supreme Leader.
Additionally, before becoming Iran’s vice president, Mokhber served as head of the Execution of the Order of Imam Khomeini (Setad), a state-owned investment fund under the direct control of the Supreme Leader.
It was created from thousands of properties that were confiscated after the 1979 Islamic Revolution under an order issued by the Islamic Republic’s founder, Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
He ordered his assistants to sell and manage properties supposedly abandoned in the chaotic years after the revolution and funnel most of the profits to charity.
However, a Reuters investigation found that he built “his empire on the systematic seizure of thousands of properties belonging to ordinary Iranians.”
Initially, Ruhollah ordered three aides to distribute the property to charities. However, under Khamenei, the organization has been acquiring property for itself and has grown to become a major economic power in Iran.
The actions of the new incumbent president have made him noticed abroad.
In 2010, the European Union included Mokhber on a list of individuals and entities it was sanctioning for alleged involvement in “nuclear or ballistic missile activities.”
Two years later, he removed it from the list.
In 2013, the U.S. Treasury Department added Setad and 37 companies it supervised to a list of sanctioned entities.
Mokhber was also part of a team of Iranian officials who visited Moscow in October and agreed to supply surface-to-surface missiles and more drones to the Russian military, sources told Reuters news agency at the time.
Born on September 1, 1955, Mokhber (pictured in May 2023), like Raisi, is considered close to Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state.
Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin (right) and Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber shake hands during their meeting on the sidelines of the Council of Heads of Government of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Member States of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, Wednesday, October 25, 2023
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (pictured May 10) has tasked Mokhber with organizing elections for a new president within the next 50 days.
The team also included two senior officials from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and an official from the Supreme National Security Council.
The additional drones and missiles have wreaked havoc across Ukraine and allowed Russia to gain an advantage in Vladimir Putin’s ongoing war.
Raisi died on Sunday after a helicopter carrying him and other officials crashed in the mountainous area of northwestern Iran.
Iranian media confirmed his death today along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian; The governor of East Azerbaijan province, Malek Rahmati, the Friday prayer imam of Tabriz, Mohammad Ali Alehashem, as well as the pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, security chief and another bodyguard.
Grainy images released by IRNA early this morning showed what the state news agency described as the crash site. The soldiers, speaking in the local Azeri language, said: “There it is, we found it.”
An Iranian official later said that search teams who located the remains found “no sign of life.” The nation’s government held an “urgent meeting” on Monday, in which Raisi’s chair was left empty and covered with a black sash.
Mokhber takes over as president at a time when the Middle East remains unsettled by the war between Israel and Hamas during which Raisi, under Khamenei, launched an unprecedented drone and missile attack against Israel last month.
Under Raisi’s rule, Iran enriched uranium further than ever to weapons-grade levels, further escalating tensions with the West as Tehran also supplied bomb-carrying drones to Russia for its war in Ukraine and to armed militia groups in the entire region.
Iran, meanwhile, has faced years of mass protests against its Shiite theocracy over its weakened economy and women’s rights, making the moment that much more sensitive for Tehran and the country’s future.
Iran has armed Russia in its war against Ukraine, as well as launching a massive drone and missile attack against Israel amid its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
It has also continued to arm allied groups in the Middle East, such as Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (pictured May 19), a hardline protégé of the country’s supreme leader, died Sunday at age 63.
Raisi was confirmed dead after rescuers found a helicopter carrying him and other officials had crashed in the mountainous area of northwest Iran the previous day. Drone footage was seen from the crash site early Monday morning.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi (left) was photographed moments before the helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan that killed him.
Mass protests in the country have continued for years.
The most recent involved the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who had previously been detained for allegedly not wearing a hijab or headscarf, as pleases authorities.
The security crackdown that lasted months after the protests killed more than 500 people and detained more than 22,000.
In March, a United Nations investigative panel concluded that Iran was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death.