Raisi, the country’s foreign minister and several other officials were found dead on Monday, hours after their helicopter crashed in a foggy, mountainous region of the country’s northwest, state media reported. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced Monday that Iran’s first vice president, Mohammad Mokhber, would serve as the country’s acting president until elections are held. Under the Iranian constitution, Iran’s vice first president takes over if the president dies, with Khamenei’s assent, and a new presidential election would be called within 50 days. Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election, a vote that saw the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history. The crash comes as the Middle East remains unsettled by the Israel-Hamas war, during which Raisi launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel just last month.

Source: The North Africa Journal May 20, 2024 14:15 UTC