{"id":80301,"date":"2026-03-04T00:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=80301"},"modified":"2026-03-03T23:01:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T06:01:28","slug":"ayatollah-ali-khameneis-son-emerges-as-leading-choice-to-be-his-successor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/ayatollah-ali-khameneis-son-emerges-as-leading-choice-to-be-his-successor\/","title":{"rendered":"Ayatollah Ali Khamenei\u2019s son emerges as leading choice to be his successor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Ayatollah<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The senior clerics responsible for selecting Iran\u2019s next supreme leader met on Tuesday to deliberate, and the son of the slain former leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, emerged as the clear front-runner, according to three Iranian officials familiar with the deliberations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The officials said that the clerics were considering announcing that the son, Mojtaba Khamenei, would be his father\u2019s successor as early as Wednesday morning but that some had expressed reservations, fearing that it could expose him as a target for the United States and Israel. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal deliberations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The clerics, known as the Assembly of Experts, held two virtual meetings one in the morning and one in the evening, according to the officials. Israel struck a building in Qum, one of Shia Islam\u2019s main seats of power, where the assembly was scheduled to meet and elect the new supreme leader, but the building was empty, according to the Fars News agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vali Nasr, an expert of Iran and Shia Islam at Johns Hopkins University, said that Mr. Khamenei would be a surprising choice \u2014 and a potentially telling one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was slated to become the successor for a long time,\u201d Mr. Nasr said, \u201cbut for the past two years, it seemed to have dropped off from the radar. If he is elected, it suggests it is a much more hard-line Revolutionary Guard side of the regime that is now in charge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, is an influential if reclusive figure who has operated in the shadows of the empire of his father, who was killed on Saturday in the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Khamenei is known for having close ties to the Revolutionary Guards. The Guards, according to the three officials, pushed for his appointment, arguing that he had the qualifications needed to steer Iran in this time of crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMojtaba is the wisest pick right now because he is intimately familiar with running and coordinating security and military apparatuses,\u201d said Mehdi Rahmati, an analyst in Tehran. \u201cHe was in charge of this already.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Rahmati said that, nevertheless, not everyone will be pleased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA portion of the public will react negatively and forcefully to this decision, and it will have a backlash,\u201d he predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporters of the government would see him as a continuation of a ruler whom they view as martyred and will back him swiftly, Mr. Rahmati said. But government opponents, too, will see him as a continuation of the regime, which in recent months has killed at least 7,000, a number that may well grow, rights groups say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other candidates who have emerged as finalists are Alireza Arafi, a cleric and jurist who is part of the three-person transition council of leadership named after Ayatollah Khamenei was killed, and Seyed Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the Islamic revolution\u2019s founding father, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Mr. Arafi and Mr. Khomeini are viewed as moderates, with the latter being close to the sidelined reformist political faction in Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abdolreza Davari, a politician close to Mojtaba Khamenei, said in public statements and in interviews with The New York Times that if Mr. Khamenei did succeed his father, he could emerge as a figure in the style of the Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed bin Salman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe is extremely progressive and will move to sideline the hard-liners,\u201d Mr. Davari said in a text message before the war. \u201cSee his appointment as a shedding of skin.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier on Tuesday, at a news conference in Washington, President Trump said that many of the people his government had viewed as potential leaders of Iran had been killed since Saturday. \u201cPretty soon we\u2019re not going to know anybody,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked about a worst-case scenario in Iran, he said: \u201cI guess the worst case would be we do this and somebody takes over who\u2019s as bad as the previous person. Right, that could happen. We don\u2019t want that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Assembly of Experts consists of 88 senior Shiite clerics who are picked in public elections and under Iran\u2019s Constitution are responsible for appointing, supervising and discharging the supreme leader. This is the second supreme leader the assembly will pick in the Islamic republic\u2019s 47-year history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1989, the assembly picked Ayatollah Khamenei, handing him the reins of a newly created theocracy. For more than four decades he ruled with absolute power and little flexibility to change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mojtaba Khamenei\u2019s wife, Zahra Adel; his mother, Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, and a son were killed alongside his father in strikes on Saturday, the Iranian government said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n