Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, laid out a timeline for selecting a new supreme leader, saying that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s successor will be chosen in “one or two days.”
Araghchi was speaking to the Al Jazeera network on Sunday, a day after Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US and Israeli strikes. He said that state institutions in Iran “are in place” and that the country “has constitutional procedures in place”.
“You may see the selection of a supreme leader in a day or two,” he was quoted by the outlet as saying.
Ayatollah Alireza Arafi was appointed on Sunday as the jurist member of Iran’s interim Leadership Council, the body tasked with fulfilling the Supreme Leader’s role until the Assembly of Experts elects a permanent successor.
“The Expediency Discernment Council has elected Ayatollah Alireza Arafi as a member of the interim leadership council,” said expediency council spokesman Mohsen Dehnavi in a post on X.
The Leadership Council
Ayatollah Alireza Arafi now co-governs the Islamic Republic alongside President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei. This authority was previously held singularly by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Arafi, thus, is technically one of three members. But being a cleric in a regime that has been led by only a cleric as the supreme leader, he effectively becomes the seniormost.
His name began to rise in prominence after Khamenei became Supreme Leader in 1989, and he was first appointed as Friday prayer leader in his hometown of Meybod in 1992. He was 33 at the time, a young age for such an appointment and a clear sign of Khamenei’s trust in him.
Khamenei’s willingness to appoint Arafi to senior and strategically sensitive positions showed “a great deal of confidence in his bureaucratic abilities”, analyst Alex Vatanka told CNN. Arafi was still not known as a political heavyweight with close ties to the security establishment, but his appointment now suggests he might have made up for that over the years.
Over the decades, Arafi accumulated a remarkable portfolio of institutional power.
Before his emergency appointment to the Leadership Council, he simultaneously held three of the most influential positions in the country: director of Iran’s nationwide seminary system, member of the Guardian Council, and member of the Assembly of Experts.