Iran’s Assembly of Experts has been plagued with infighting over plans to announce Mojtaba Khamenei, the second son of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the new Supreme Leader of Iran, Iran International reported on Thursday, citing two sources from within the offices of the experts.
The assembly is reportedly planning to meet online on Thursday, though eight members of the 88 experts have allegedly refused to attend in protest of “heavy pressure” by the Revolutionary Guards to appoint Mojtaba Khamenei. From early Tuesday, IRGC commanders across the country reportedly pressured members to vote for Mojtaba Khamenei through a campaign of meetings and phone calls until minutes before the assembly began.
Without firm leadership yet decided, the authority to appoint and dismiss military officials and to declare war has been transferred to the Interim Leadership Council, Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.
Mojtaba Khamenei has formed close political alliances with Ahmad Vahidi, the newly appointed IRGC commander; Hossein Taeb, a former head of the IRGC’s intelligence organization; and Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, according to The Guardian.
Six Iranian and regional sources with close knowledge of the IRGC confirmed the guards had taken a far greater role in the hierarchy since the war began on Saturday and were now involved in every big decision, according to Reuters.
Many experts have also reportedly taken issue with “hereditary leadership,” Iran International reported, fearing a monarchical structure.
Expert opposition to Mojtaba Khamenei's potential appointment
“Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was not pleased with the idea of his son’s leadership and never allowed this issue to be raised during his lifetime,” one Assembly member told the chairman and members of the body’s leadership in calls, the sources told the Iranian diaspora site. Other critics have rejected the appointment, arguing that Mojtaba Khamenei lacks the necessary public clerical and jurisprudential standing, leaving him without religious legitimacy.
The potential appointment of Montaba was also not welcomed by US President Donald Trump, who told Axios, "Khamenei's son is unacceptable to me. We want someone that will bring harmony and peace to Iran.”
"They are wasting their time. Khamenei's son is a lightweight. I have to be involved in the appointment, like with Delcy [Rodriguez] in Venezuela," Trump said, adding that he refuses to accept a new leader who would continue the late Khamenei's policies, claiming that such a leader would force the US back to war in the near future.
Mojtaba was born in 1969 in the city of Mashhad and grew up as his father was helping lead the opposition to the Shah. As a young man, he served in the Iran-Iraq war and went on to later study under religious conservatives in the seminaries of Hom, Iran's center of Shi'ite theological learning, and has the clerical rank of Hojjatoleslam.
Mojtaba has never held a formal position in the Islamic Republic's government, despite being widely seen as the gatekeeper to his father. He has appeared at loyalist rallies, but has rarely spoken in public.
The meeting comes two days after Iran International reported that the Assembly of Experts had chosen Mojtaba Khamenei as the next Supreme Leader under pressure from the Revolutionary Guards. Comments opposing the appointment were reportedly cut short as the vote pushed ahead.
After an IDF airstrike disrupted the Tuesday assembly, the experts have elected to move the proceedings online, with only a handful attending in-person, the sources claimed. The meeting will reportedly be managed from a building near the shrine of Fatima Masumeh in Hom.