Who is the new Iranian supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei?
Mojtaba Khamenei is Iran’s new supreme leader, having succeeded his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following the latter’s assassination in the first wave of joint US-Israel attacks on the Islamic Republic.
The 56-year-old younger Khamenei was announced as his father’s successor on Sunday after a vote by the assembly of experts, a group of clerics responsible for the appointment of Iran’s highest authority.
This makes him the country’s third supreme leader, after his father and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
It is also the first time in the Islamic Republic’s history that a son directly succeeds his father in this role.
Prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution, which established the position of supreme leader as the cornerstone of Iran’s theocratic system, the country was ruled by the Pahlavi dynasty.
In Iran, the supreme leader has the final say in all matters of state, above the president.
The leader is chosen by an assembly of experts, an 88-member body, directly elected by the people and composed primarily of senior clerics.
How did Mojtaba Khamenei rise to clinch the most influential position in the country? This is everything we know about him.
THE CLERIC STEPPING OUT OF HIS FATHER’S SHADOW
Perhaps the most interesting and contradictory fact about the younger Khamenei is the little public knowledge about him owed to his largely secretive life.
Born on September 8, 1969, the cleric previously operated behind the scenes as a key power broker.
Khamenei had always enjoyed high popularity among rank-and-file Islamists because he was so close to his father and assumed a leadership role of deputy chief of staff for political and security affairs in his office while the ayatollah was alive.
Khamenei has never held government office but was described as a gatekeeper to his father. He was the ayatollah’s second-oldest son.
Though state and international media often touted him as a likely successor, it was assumed that grievances, including a deteriorating economy, a repressive domestic policy, and foreign policy goals that saw many losses towards the end of his father’s regime, could work against him.
He studied under religious conservatives in seminaries in the city of Qom and is described as a hardliner with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), where he served in the Habib Battalion during the Iran-Iraq War.
SANCTIONED BY THE US
In 2019, the US sanctioned Khamenei, alongside his father and close associates, for having “oppressed the Iranian people, exported terrorism, and advanced destabilizing policies around the world” over decades.
Khamenei was sanctioned for representing his father in an official capacity despite never being elected or appointed to a government position aside from work in the ayatollah’s office.
According to the US, Khamenei worked closely with the IRGC Qods Force and also the Basij Resistance Force (Basij) to advance his father’s “destabilising regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives”.
The sanctions sought to block funds from flowing to a shadow network of the late ayatollah’s military and foreign affairs advisors.
THE MASTER STRATEGIST
The office of the supreme leader has a highly complex system of more than 100 organisations and sub-institutions whose leaders are accountable only to the supreme leader, not to the government.
Within this labyrinth, Khamenei was said to have created two centres of power under his father’s rule: an intelligence sector that encompasses seventeen agencies and the propaganda apparatus, which includes state media and the influential directorate for Friday prayer imams.
Citing sources, the Washington Institute reported that he filled these centres with henchmen from around the same age group and systematically used them to expand his influence.
During the 2005 presidential election, Khamenei reportedly convinced his father to support hardline candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former Iranian president. And when Ahmadinejad won a second term in 2009, Khamenei allegedly organised the violent suppression of the resultant mass protests, with active support from Hossein Taeb, the Basij militia chief who would later become IRGC head of intelligence.
According to reports, Khamenei’s close cooperation with Ahmadinejad allowed him to enjoy “illegal proceeds” from oil smuggling running into billions of dollars.
A Bloomberg investigation revealed how the 56-year-old hid behind strawmen investors in Europe while using regime assets to amass a real estate empire.
QUESTIONS OVER RELIGIOUS AUTHORITY
Iran’s constitution requires the supreme leader to possess deep knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence and be recognised as a senior religious authority.
Ayatollah is a high-ranking title in Twelver Shia Islam, meaning “Sign of God”. It is awarded to senior Shia clerics who demonstrate exceptional religious scholarship and authority to interpret Islamic law. In Iran’s political system, it carries immense weight.
Khamenei, however, is not widely considered to be among the highest-ranking clerics in Iran. Though he studied in the seminaries of Qom under several prominent conservative scholars, he does not hold the rank of ayatollah.
But Iran’s political system has historically shown flexibility when elite consensus forms around a candidate.
Shortly before Khomeini’s death, a change was made in the constitution of Iran, allowing a lower-ranking Shia cleric, who Khamenei’s father was at the time, to become the supreme leader.
Khamenei takes the helm as Iran confronts strikes from the US and Israel, mounting economic losses, and strained ties with neighbouring countries.
