Who is Mohammad Mokhber, set to become Iran’s interim president after Raisi’s death

Last Updated on May 20, 2024 2:51 pm

Mohammad Mokhber, 68, Iran’s first vice president, is expected to become interim president following the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash according to the constitution.

The Iranian constitution stipulates that the first vice president take over “in the event of the president’s death, dismissal, resignation, absence or illness for more than two months”.

Raisi, who died on Sunday along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other officials, was nearing the end of his first four-year term as president, reports AFP.

Mokhber’s interim appointment requires the approval of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final word in all state affairs.

Presidential elections to pick a permanent successor are to be held within 50 days, according to the constitution.

As interim president, Mokhber is part of a three-person council, along with the speaker of parliament and the head of the judiciary, that will organise a new presidential election within 50 days of the president’s death.

Born on 1 September 1955, Mokhber, like Raisi, is seen as close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the last say in all matters of state. Mokhber became first vice president in 2021 when Raisi was elected president, reports Reuters.

Mokhber was part of a team of Iranian officials who visited Moscow in October and agreed to supply surface-to-surface missiles and more drones to Russia’s military, sources told Reuters at the time. The team also included two senior officials from Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and an official from the Supreme National Security Council.

Previously, Mokhber had been the head of Setad, an investment fund linked to the supreme leader.

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, it removed him from the list.

In 2013, the US Treasury Department added Setad and 37 companies it oversaw to a list of sanctioned entities.

Setad, whose full name is Setad Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam, or the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, was set up under an order issued by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Khamenei’s predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It ordered aides to sell and manage properties supposedly abandoned in the chaotic years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and channel the bulk of the proceeds to charity.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardliner long seen as a potential successor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a helicopter crash in mountainous terrain near the Azerbaijan border, officials and state media said on Monday.

The charred wreckage of the helicopter which crashed on Sunday carrying Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was found early on Monday after an overnight search in blizzard conditions.

“President Raisi, the foreign minister and all the passengers in the helicopter were killed in the crash,” a senior Iranian official told Reuters, asking not to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.