Commentary: Crash that killed President Raisi will further roil Iran’s domestic politics

SINGAPORE: The tragedy that befell Iran over the weekend and killed President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian could not have come at a more fraught time for the Islamic Republic.

The helicopter crash, reportedly due to a “technical failure”, killed all eight aboard, including several other senior officials.

As the Middle East teeters on the brink of a wider regional conflict sparked by the Israel-Hamas war, however, the main concerns raised by the sudden leadership void centre around domestic issues.

The most pressing one is electing a replacement for Mr Raisi. Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber is serving as Raisi’s replacement for now, while Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani has been named acting Foreign Minister.

Under the Iranian constitution, elections must be held within 50 days - reports just in have stipulated Jun 28 as polling day.

Given widespread discontent with the leadership in the country, however, elections offer another opportunity for Iranians to raise questions, in their own way, about the legitimacy of the regime.

Plagued by the dismal state of the economy, repressive measures taken in the face of popular discontent - most recently over the fate of Mahsa Amini, a woman arrested for allegedly violating the country’s mandatory hijab rule, and who subsequently died in police custody - a crippling drought and water shortages, among other things, pent-up anger at the regime has been growing.

THE LOOMING BATTLE FOR SUCCESSION

In parliamentary elections held earlier this year, Iranians voted with their feet, literally. Only about 25 million of the country’s 61 million eligible voters bothered to go to the polls, the lowest electoral turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.

The 2021 election which saw Mr Raisi take power did not fare much better: Slightly less than half of Iranians voted, and millions of them cast invalid votes in a sign of protest.

Next month’s election is unlikely to reverse this trend. Given the high levels of disaffection - numerous media reports have focused on Iranians who welcomed Mr Raisi’s death - it is likely voters will use the occasion to display anger at the government again.

This is particularly so since the vetting process for candidates will again exclude those who are not hardliners, meaning the next president will be an ideological carbon copy of his predecessor. This will again leave ordinary Iranians feeling that they have no voice when it comes to decisions about the direction their country is taking.

That is not the only dark cloud on the horizon. Iran’s President is nominally the second-most powerful person in the country, but much of what he does comes at the direction of the Supreme Leader.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current Supreme Leader, is 85, and reportedly ailing. As succession loomed, Mr Raisi was widely viewed as one of two contenders for the top post, the other being Mojtaba Khamenei, the Ayatollah’s son.

THE LEADER’S SON

This presents a problem for the Islamic Republic, which took power by overthrowing a hereditary monarchy in 1979.

Elevating the son of the current Supreme Leader would not be a good look for the regime, raising further questions about its legitimacy. In fact, several top clerics have gone on record to say that the Supreme Leader himself has expressed opposition to his son’s candidacy for the role.

An added question is whether 54-year-old Mojtaba, the Ayatollah’s second-eldest son, is even qualified for the job, considering he is of relatively low rank in the Shiite clerical hierarchy.

Little is known about Mojtaba, beyond the fact that he was a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-1988. Despite flying under the radar, he reportedly has built strong ties within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, giving him an influential power base in any push for the top job.

But the alternative is not much better: A power struggle between various factions who will jockey to get their man in office, the net effect of which would be the installation of a leader via a process that excludes the Iranian people, again.

Over the short term, then, there is unlikely to be much change when it comes to Iran’s foreign policy, which is directed by the Supreme Leader, and is thus expected to stay the course.

While the fears of a wider regional war remain, Iran - and its adversaries in the United States and Israel - are chary of a bigger conflict. What will be of most impact in the coming months will be what happens within the Islamic Republic itself.

Carl Skadian, a former journalist and editor for 30 years, is Senior Associate Director at the Middle East Institute, NUS.