Semafor signals
Supported by
Insights from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Iran International and Al-Monitor
The news
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in the mountains near the Azerbaijan-Iran border. He was 63.
Raisi was traveling with Iran’s foreign minister, who has also been confirmed dead, along with several other passengers and crew. Rescuers discovered the wrecked helicopter early Monday after an overnight search in snowstorms.
Iran has declared five days of mourning.
SIGNALS
Raisi was seen as a possible successor to the Supreme Leader
Source: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Raisi, a hardline cleric known for brutally suppressing dissent, was seen as a potential successor to Iran’s 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His death could trigger a succession crisis, one analyst wrote on If the unpopular Mojtaba Khamenei, Khamaeni’s son, were appointed Iran’s supreme leader, he added, he would face a crisis of legitimacy and rely heavily on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards to maintain order.
The president oversaw the tightening of his grip on Iranian society
Source: Al Monitor
Raisi, who was elected president in 2021, oversaw a period of heightened state repression and enforcement of the country’s extreme religious laws. Under his rule, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards forcefully cracked down on widespread protests against Iran’s moral laws following the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022 for wearing her hijab “inappropriately.” Iran’s use of executions increased: 834 people were put to death in Iran in 2023, compared to 582 people in 2022, Al-Monitor reported.
The regime is facing a new crisis of legitimacy
Source: Iran International
Raisi’s death plunges the Iranian regime into a crisis of legitimacy, argued Shahram Kholdi, professor of Middle East politics at Canada’s University of Waterloo, in the British news channel Iran International. By law, elections must be called within 50 days to choose the new president – but that creates problems for the regime, Kholdi said. “What makes the current situation most dire is that if Khamenei dies before a new president is elected, the country could potentially plunge into nationwide unrest,” he wrote. After the 2022 protests, “the regime is already grappling with an endemic crisis of legitimacy. So it is Khamenei’s demise that could potentially trigger a multi-fold crisis.”
