Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s protege, and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian died in a helicopter crash on Sunday. They were returning to Tehran after attending a ceremony with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to inaugurate the construction of the new Qiz Qalasi Dam on the Iran-Azerbaijan border.
Khamenei said Iran would undergo a five-day mourning period. “This bitter tragedy took place while he was serving the people. The entire period that this great, self-sacrificing man held various responsibilities, both during his presidency and before that, he was totally dedicated to serving the people and Islam nonstop,” Khamenei posted on his official X account.
However, for ordinary Iranians, Raisi leaves behind a controversial legacy. Nicknamed “the butcher of Tehran,” in 1988, he helped oversee the mass executions of thousands of political prisoners as Iran’s then-deputy prosecutor general. According to Amnesty International, he later described this period as “one of the proud achievements of the system” during a lecture in May 2018.
Raisi was considered a hardliner and, a year after becoming president, he ordered authorities in 2022 to step up enforcement of Iran’s strict hijab laws. Weeks after the order, Mahsa Amini was murdered in police custody after being arrested for allegedly wearing an improper hijab. Her death sparked massive protests across Iran, with some publicly calling for an end to the regime.
Some Iranians even celebrated Raisi’s death. The daughters of Minoo Majidi, a 62-year-old woman killed during the September 2022 protests in Iran, posted a video toasting his death. Images of fireworks on the streets of an Iranian city have also circulated on social media, although they have not yet been independently verified.
Mohammad Mokhber, Iranian Vice President will automatically assume the presidency following Raisi’s death. However, there is a potentially major succession crisis, as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is 85 years old and reportedly in poor health.
“Raisi’s death poses two important challenges to the ruling order in Iran. 1) it will change the scenarios for succession and related to that 2) the hard right has no immediate candidate to succeed Raisi,” said Vali Nasr, a professor at Johns Hopkins School of International Relations who specializes in Iran, in a post on X.
“That may open the door for conservatives, thus far sidelined, to make a comeback.”
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