IN DEPTH: What is next for Iran after President Raisi’s death?

The deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in a helicopter crash in the country’s East Azerbaijan province sent shock waves across Iran and the tumultuous Middle East, where Tehran’s proxies have extended influence.

Regional officials and political analysts are weighing the impact of the crash on Iran’s internal decision-making process and its foreign policy, with some fearing the powerful Revolutionary Guards will come to exercise more power.

Iranian observers have long pointed out a power struggle between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s reformist and moderate factions until Raisi came to power in 2021.

However, the Guardian Council, a body that decides which politicians are suitable for office, allowed only a handful of low-profile reformist candidates to challenge Raisi.

The IRGC was able to increase its influence under Raisi’s watch, says Mehmet Bulovali, an Iraqi political analyst and a former adviser in the Iraqi presidency.

In the wake of Raisi’s death, the IRGC will try to exert more power as it tries to show that there’s no political chaos, he says, but any serious internal rifts that can morph into a crisis are unlikely.

“In 1981, a bomb killed 74 high-ranking officials, including some top clerics, following the tense days of the 1979 revolution, but the system was able to survive.”

It would have been a different story if the Iranian president was killed in an assassination and not an accident, Bulovali tells TRT World. “If these deaths had happened due to internal or external conspiracies, then we might have thought about crisis scenarios. In that case, the Iranian system would need to respond forcefully to those perpetrators, leading to different reactions, but that’s not the case,” he says.

Who could be the next president?

Bulovali thinks that Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the current speaker of the parliament, will possibly be the next Iranian president.

Ghalibaf, a former military officer, is a strong ally of both the IRGC and Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of the country’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, says Bulovali, a trait that Ghalibaf shares with Raisi.

Many experts see Mojtaba as a potential successor to his father to take the top position in the country that wields more power than the president’s office.

“If both of these figures, Ghalibaf and the junior Khamenei, reach their hypothetical eventual posts, it means everything will come under the total control of the Guards,” says Bulovali.

The snap presidential elections should be held in the next 50 days, according to the Iranian constitution.

Fatima Karimkhan, a Tehran-based journalist, does not see any serious domestic political upheaval following Raisi’s death. “No chance.”

This is not the first time the head of the government has died, she says, pointing out the assassination of former President Mohammad Ali Rajai in 1981.

“The next presidential election will be very important from the perspective of politics, but whether people choose to take it seriously or not is a matter that will be affected by too many factors,” Karimkhan tells TRT World.

“Right now, it seems that the next presidential election will be between hardliners. The parliament speaker, Ghalibaf, will be one of the prominent candidates among lots of other names, but it is too soon to speak about the next presidential election right now.”

After Amirabdolahian’s death, Ali Bahgeri Kani, a deputy to the deceased top diplomat, became the acting foreign minister. Karimkhan sees this appointment as a sign of conservatives consolidating their power because Kani is “much more hardliner than the late foreign minister.”

David Des Roches, a professor at the National Defense University’s Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies and a retired US Army colonel, sees a possibility that the IRGC might “basically complete a slow-motion coup” following the deaths of Raisi and Amirabdolahian.

Any chance for reformists

Both Bulovali and Karimkhan do not see any real opportunities for reformists in the snap presidential elections.

Bulovali says the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal during President Donald Trump’s government struck a blow to the reformist movement, which advocated improving ties with the West in order to get relief from international sanctions, which have handicapped the Iranian economy.

The US-led sanctions could even be behind Raisi’s death as they have blocked the supply of aircraft parts to Iran, forcing Tehran to use faulty and old jets and helicopters.

Iran’s indirect involvement in the Ukraine-Russia conflict and Israel's war on Gaza further frustrates the reformists’ effort to reach out to the West as their country continues to work closely with Russia and Hamas, says Bulovali.

“Reformists and moderates will not have a place in this race if things go the same way they went three years ago when Raisi came to office,” says Karimkhan, referring to the disqualification of many reformist-minded candidates in the 2021 poll by the Guardian Council and low election turnout.

But a low turnout, which strips the election of its legitimacy, is precisely the reason the Iranian religious elite might let moderates run for the election.

Ghoncheh Tazmini, an Iranian-Canadian political analyst and the author of Khatemi’s Iran: The Islamic Republic and the Turbulent Path to Reform, says fear of a low turnout can push Tehran to let a more diverse list of candidates participate in the upcoming election.

Iran had a record-low turnout in the recent parliamentary election, which strengthened hardliners in the parliament.

“This may be an opportune time to foster a more inclusive political process by presenting a more moderate presidential candidate, which may draw more voters to the ballot box,” Tazmini tells TRT World. However, she says it’s unlikely such a scenario will play out, considering Iran’s internal and external challenges.

“Given the heightened state of tension in the region, a more conservative leader at the helm may make more sense, which in turn could prompt more intensive intra-hardliner competition. From a national security perspective, the Guardian Council may be even more rigorous in vetting candidates to ensure the next president can protect the state during this time of regional unrest,” she says.

Any foreign policy change?

Analysts project no serious change in Iran’s foreign policy, including its stance on Israel.

“There will be continuity in Iranian foreign policy trajectory with a continued inclination towards the East with an effort to participate in ‘non-western’ political and economic groupings and in regional organisations,” says Tazmini, referring to Tehran’s growing alliance with Russia and China.

She also credits Raisi for his “multipolar diplomacy in a multilateral format.”

Raisi, a fluent Arabic speaker, was instrumental in reaching out to the Arab world, which resulted in the Saudi-Iran normalisation and de-escalation of tensions in the Gulf, she says.

He also oversaw Iran’s membership in multilateral organisations like the The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and BRICS, she adds.

In relation to Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and other areas, “Iran will continue its forward defence strategy in order to achieve strategic depth - by building up a network of affiliates by supporting local non-state partners and proxies,” says Tazmini, referring to Tehran’s alliance with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Iraqi Shia militias and the Assad regime.

This Iranian military model as a form of deterrence is based on Tehran’s perception of a threatening and volatile security environment in the Middle East, according to Tazmini.

Karimkhan also doesn’t see any chance for any significant change in Iran's foreign policy across the Middle East. When it comes to Tehran’s regional policy, Iranian governments are merely “policy executives”, she says. This is also valid for Iran’s Israel policy, she says.

“Israel has enough to be worried about right now and Iran is much bigger and stronger than what Israel is capable of handling,” she says.

After Iran and Israel exchanged tit-for-tat attacks last month, things appeared to return to the previous rules of engagement of a military doctrine in which Tehran uses its proxies to fight Israel, according to Bulovali.

But this might also change depending on the developments in the Gaza war and Israeli internal politics, he says. “Both Israelis and Iranians are waiting for the result of US elections to recalibrate their next moves.”