Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said on Monday that First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber is in charge of the executive branch and has a maximum period of 50 days to hold elections following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported.
Iran’s government cabinet appointed Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani as acting foreign minister following Hossein Amirabdollahian’s death.
Earlier, Iran’s three branches of government held an extraordinary meeting on Monday, with First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber representing the executive branch, state TV said.
A council consisting of the first vice president, the speaker of parliament and the head of the judiciary must arrange an election for a new president within a maximum period of 50 days.
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Who is Mohammad Mokhber
Mohammad Mokhber, 68, Iran’s first vice president who, based on the country’s constitution, is expected to become interim president following the death of Ebrahim Raisi.
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 Sept. 1, 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.
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.
Mokhber had previously been head of Setad, an investment fund linked to the supreme leader.
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 after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and channel the bulk of the proceeds to charity.
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.