After a night of searching, in which more than 2,000 people participated, official Iranian television confirmed early yesterday what was feared: the president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, his Foreign Minister, Hosein Amir Abdolahian and six others The occupants of the crashed helicopter had died and their bodies were burned.
On Sunday, Ayatollah Mohamed Ali Al-Hashem, the highest religious figure in the region and one of the victims, was conscious for an hour, during which time he managed to call the presidential office to alert them of what had happened. But then the communication was cut off, which opened a small glimmer of hope that the president and his companions had survived.
“DNA tests are not needed to identify the passengers,” said Mohamed Nami, director of the agency managing the crisis, who attributed the accident to bad weather in the area. The authorities stressed the difficult conditions under which the flight was carried out, but even so the head of the Iranian military forces, General Mohamed Bagheri Qani, ordered the creation of a high-level committee to investigate the incident. A decision to silence rumors on social networks that attribute the accident to Iran’s enemies, Israel.
The accusing finger has indeed been pointed at the United States and the consequences of the sanctions on Iranian aviation. For decades, the Islamic Republic has had problems accessing spare parts for its worn-out fleet and also renewing it. The helicopter in which the president was traveling was purchased 40 years ago. “This will go down on the list of American crimes against the people of Iran,” former Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif told state television.
“The servant of Reza [by the eighth imam of the Shiites], servant of the Iranians, of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah, doctor, seyed Ebrahim Raisi, president of the republic achieved the high degree of martyrdom on the way to serving the people,” said the state television presenter in the morning.
Shortly after, the supreme leader of the revolution Ali Khamenei, who a day earlier had assured that the Government continued to fulfill its obligations, ordered five days of mourning and then referred to Raisi as a very close person. “I didn’t know fatigue,” said the leader, who also referred to the president’s critics. “His annoyance at the ingratitude and mockery of some evildoers did not stop him from working day and night to improve the Iranians,” he said.
Raisi’s critics blame him for his failure to improve the economy, create jobs and end increasingly entrenched corruption. A sector of society does not forget that, as a prosecutor, he was part of the so-called death committee, which sentenced thousands of prisoners to execution and burial in common graves in the dark decade of the eighties.
Hamed Esmailiyoun, one of the main opposition leaders in exile, assured that the “victims were deprived of the opportunity to do justice in the case of Ebrahim Raisi.” Comments celebrating his death were heard in Tehran, especially among those who took to the streets to call for reforms and openness.
These expressions of happiness contrasted with the images of the more conservative sector, especially in the mausoleums of Qom and Mashad, where there was crying and prayers were made for the memory of those who died, “the martyrs.”
The first vice president, Mohamed Mokhber, was officially designated interim president, as indicated in the Constitution. Ali Bagheri Qani, another person in the leader’s circle and until yesterday in charge of negotiations on the nuclear agreement, was also appointed as the new interim foreign minister.
Mokhber, a man who has held important positions in the structure of the Islamic Republic, met with the government cabinet and with the speaker of parliament, Mohamed Baqer Galibaf, and the head of the judicial system, Hoyatoleslam Gholam Hosein Ejai. The three make up the committee that will coordinate the presidential elections that must be held in the next 50 days.
The new president will govern for the next four years. Getting these elections underway will not be easy. The radical conservative sector that has taken control of the country will have to find a man who can replace Raisi, of whom no one doubted that he would run for re-election in the 2025 elections. Nor did anyone doubt that he would win them.
The great challenge will be to find names that mobilize a society disillusioned and critical of the Islamic Republic. Once the funerals are over, which begin today in Tabriz and Qom, continue tomorrow in Tehran and will end on Thursday in Mashad, the political movements will begin with an eye not only on who will be the next president, but on how the different political sectors position themselves. for when the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, is absent.
