Who will rule Iran after Khamenei? Majority consensus in the Assembly of Experts. Israel has announced that it could become “a target”
The Assembly of Experts, the body that must appoint Iran's new supreme leader after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has reached a majority consensus on the successor. However, the process is not yet complete as there are “some obstacles” which must be resolved.
Who will lead Iran after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei PHOTO: Profimedia
Ayatollah Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri said members of the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for electing Iran's supreme leader, had largely reached an agreement on the country's future leader. The information was reported by the semi-official Mehr news agency and later picked up by Reuters.
However, the cleric stated that the process is not completely completed. “There are some obstacles” that must be overcome before the decision is made official, he said.
Iranian media reports that there were discussions within the Assembly of Experts on how the final decision should be announced. Specifically, members did not fully agree on whether the appointment should be made in a face-to-face meeting or whether it could be communicated without this formality.
In this context, another member of the Assembly, Hossein Mozafari, called for calm and asked the population “to refrain from all speculation and the spreading of rumors on this subject“.
The succession procedure, triggered after Khamenei's death
The process of appointing the new supreme leader began shortly after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed last weekend following the first American-Israeli strikes on Iran.
The 88-member Assembly of Experts is the institution that has the authority to appoint the supreme leader of the Islamic republic. Its headquarters in Tehran and the holy city of Qom, located in the south of the country, were hit by Israeli attacks on Monday and Tuesday, respectively.
Israel has already announced that Iran's future leader could in turn become “a target“.
Interim leadership in Tehran
Until the new supreme leader is officially appointed, interim power is exercised by President Masoud Pezeshkian, the head of the judiciary, Golam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, and cleric Alireza Arafi, a member of the Assembly of Experts.
Information about a possible appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the former supreme leader, also appeared in the public space. However, these reports proved premature. According to Iranian media, what had been presented as a “first appointment” a was, in reality, only a preliminary meeting.
The information that Mojtaba Khamenei had already been appointed was initially spread by members of the Revolutionary Guard, but was not officially confirmed by the Assembly of Experts.
