Panel picking Iran’s next supreme leader has reached consensus, members say

March 8 (TEHRAN) — The body tasked with selecting Iran’s new supreme leader has reached a decision, several members said Sunday, although the name has yet to be announced.

Israel threatened to target whoever is chosen.

“The most suitable candidate, approved by the majority of the Assembly of Experts, has been determined,” said Mohsen Heydari, a member of the selection body who represents Khuzestan province, according to Iran’s ISNA news agency.

Another member, Mohammad Mehdi Mirbagheri, confirmed in a video carried by Iran’s Fars news agency that “a firm opinion reflecting the majority view has been reached.”

On Saturday, a senior cleric in the Assembly of Experts said its members would meet “within one day” to choose the leader succeeding the slain ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the opening minutes of a joint air war campaign with the US on February 28.

Khamenei’s son Mojtaba has been widely reported to be the front-runner, with some reports claiming he was a;lready chosen but had not been named for fear he would be targeted. Khamenei is believed to still be alive and likely has gone into hiding.

The Israeli military warned it would continue pursuing every Khamenei successor. In a post on X in Persian, the military also warned it would pursue every person who seeks to appoint a successor for Khamenei, referring to the clerical body charged with choosing the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader.

However, assembly member Ayatollah Mohammadmehdi Mirbaqeri said on Sunday that the panel has more or less reached a majority consensus.

The Mehr news agency quoted him as saying “some obstacles” still needed to be resolved regarding the process.

Another member, Ahmad Alamolhoda, said that the head of the assembly’s secretariat, Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, is responsible for announcing the assembly’s decision.

Iranian media said the group had a minor disagreement over whether they would need to meet in person to issue their final decision or bypass this formality.

Heidari Alekasir said in a video released by Nournews on Sunday that an in-person meeting was not possible under current conditions, suggesting remote and written alternatives.

“This is an extraordinary situation, the assembly cannot meet in a plenary,” he said.

Since the war began on February 28, Israeli and US strikes have killed dozens of officials and commanders, including Khamenei, with Iranian media reporting on Tuesday that strikes flattened an auxiliary building of the Assembly of Experts in the city of Qom. The IDF said it targeted the building, and was awaiting information on the results of the strike.

Heidari Alekasir said the candidate had been picked based on the late supreme leader’s advice that Iran’s top leader should “be hated by the enemy” instead of praised by it.

“Even the Great Satan (US) has mentioned his name,” the senior cleric said of the chosen successor, days after US President Donald Trump said Mojtaba Khamenei was an “unacceptable” choice for him.

Trump said on Thursday that the younger Khamenei, a mid-ranking hardline cleric, was the most likely successor, according to Axios, but warned he would reject such an option and that he should be personally involved in selecting Iran’s next leader.

Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, was not in Tehran when his father was killed by airstrikes early in the war, an Iranian source told Reuters on Wednesday.

He has close ties to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is one of the most influential figures in the Iranian clerical establishment, thanks to the influence he built behind the scenes and his role as his father’s gatekeeper, according to people familiar with the matter.

He has for years been seen as one of the top candidates to succeed the elder Khamenei, despite never holding a government position, aside from working in his father’s office.

Ali Khamenei ruled Iran from 1989 as the supreme leader after serving as president for nearly eight years.

Mojtaba Khamenei was a particular target for criticism by protesters during unrest over the death of a young ​woman in police custody in 2022, after she ​was arrested for allegedly breaching the Islamic Republic’s strict dress codes.

He is seen as having leverage over Iran’s security apparatus, which has repressed several waves of protests in recent years.

Mojtaba has worked closely with Iran’s IRGC — designated a terrorist group by the US and EU — both with commanders of its expeditionary Quds Force and its all-volunteer Basij that violently suppressed nationwide protests in January, murdering thousands of Iranians, the US Treasury has said.

The United States sanctioned him in 2019 during Trump’s first term over working to “advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”