How succession works in Iran and who may very well be the nation’s subsequent supreme chief | EUROtoday

Iranian state TV stated the nation’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has died.

State TV gave no trigger for the 86-year-old’s dying, with the announcement following joint US-Israeli strikes on the nation.

It comes after US President Donald Trump claimed Khamenei had died within the assaults on Saturday morning and urged the Iranian individuals to grab “the single greatest chance … to take back their country”.

The UK Government has not but commented on reviews of the Ayatollah’s dying, however shadow international secretary Dame Priti Patel stated: “No-one should shed any tears for the death of Khamenei.”

Saturday’s assault prompted retaliation from Iran, with strikes reported in a number of Gulf international locations together with the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

Hundreds of 1000’s of British nationals are believed to be current within the Gulf, and people in Bahrain, Israel, Palestine, Qatar and the UAE have been urged to register their presence with the Foreign Office.

The dying of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei after virtually 37 years in energy raises paramount questions on Iran’s future. The contours of a fancy succession course of started to take form the morning after Khamenei’s assassination.

Here is what to know:

Temporary management council

As outlined in its structure, Iran on Sunday fashioned a council to imagine management duties and govern the nation.

The council is made up of Iran’s sitting president, the top of the nation’s judiciary and a member of the Guardian Council chosen by Iran’s Expediency Council, which advises the supreme chief and settles disputes with parliament.

Iran’s reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and hard-line judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, are its members who will step in and “temporarily assume all the duties of leadership.”

Panel of clerics

Though the management council will govern within the interim, an 88-member panel referred to as the Assembly of Experts “must, as soon as possible” decide a brand new supreme chief beneath Iranian legislation.

The panel consists fully of Shiite clerics who’re popularly elected each eight years and whose candidacies are accredited by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog.

That physique is thought for disqualifying candidates in numerous elections in Iran and the Assembly of Experts is not any totally different. The Guardian Council barred former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a relative average whose administration struck the 2015 nuclear take care of world powers, from election for the Assembly of Experts in March 2024.

Khamenei’s son

Clerical deliberations about succession and machinations over it happen removed from the general public eye, making it onerous to gauge who could also be a prime contender.

Previously, it was thought that Khamenei’s protege, hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, might attempt to take the mantle. However, he was killed in a May 2024 helicopter crash.

That has left one among Khamenei’s sons, Mojtaba, a 56-year-old Shiite cleric, as a possible candidate, although he has by no means held authorities workplace.

But a father-to-son switch within the case of a supreme chief might spark anger, not solely amongst Iranians already essential of clerical rule, but in addition amongst supporters of the system. Some may even see it as un-Islamic and according to creating a brand new, non secular dynasty after the 1979 collapse of the U.S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s authorities.

Rare transition

There has been just one different switch of energy within the workplace of supreme chief of Iran, the paramount decision-maker for the reason that nation’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

In 1989, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini died at age 86 after being the figurehead of the revolution and main Iran by way of its eight-year struggle with Iraq. This transition now comes after Israel launched a 12-day struggle towards Iran in June 2025 as nicely.

Vast powers

The supreme chief is on the coronary heart of Iran’s advanced power-sharing Shiite theocracy and has ultimate say over all issues of state.

He additionally serves because the commander-in-chief of the nation’s navy and the highly effective Revolutionary Guard, a paramilitary drive that the United States designated a terrorist group in 2019, and which Khamenei empowered throughout his rule.

The Guard, which has led the self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a collection of militant teams and allies throughout the Middle East meant to counter the U.S. and Israel, additionally has in depth wealth and holdings in Iran.