Mojtaba Khamenei, second son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is reportedly emerging according to the New York Times as one of the favorites, if not the main candidate, to succeed his father as Supreme Leader, despite official contrary statements and strong internal resistance.
A deliberately low-profile but powerful figure emerges, who can boast close ties with the Pasdaran, but would also carry the risk of the succession being perceived as a return to a dynastic form, contradicting the principles of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The violent death of the leader and part of his family further complicates an already tense scenario among conservatives, the Revolutionary Guards, and popular sentiment.
WHO IS MOJTABA KHAMENEI
Mojtaba Khamenei, writes the New York Times, was born in 1969 in Mashhad, an important Iranian religious center, about ten years before the establishment of the Islamic Republic. He is the second son of Ali Khamenei.
After finishing high school, around 1987, he enlisted in the Islamic military corps, the so-called Pasdaran, and participated in the final stages of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), a conflict that deeply marked his generation.
THE PARALLEL RISE TO POWER WITH HIS FATHER
In 1989, immediately after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Ali Khamenei was appointed Supreme Leader.
From that moment, Mojtaba began a path of advanced religious studies at the main seminaries in Qom, under the guidance of the most authoritative ayatollahs.
He later became a seminary teacher himself, gaining legitimacy and networks of relationships among the clergy also thanks to his father’s position, while maintaining an extremely low and reserved profile.
THE HIDDEN ROLE IN THE POWER APPARATUS
For decades Mojtaba Khamenei operated almost exclusively in the shadows. He managed significant parts of the Supreme Leader’s office behind the scenes, staying away from the media spotlight except for sporadic public appearances.
This discretion allowed him to accumulate real influence without direct exposure.
In 2005, after the surprise election of conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reformists accused Mojtaba of collaborating with religious figures and the Pasdaran to steer the victory of the hardline candidate.
Mehdi Karroubi, one of the main defeated candidates, publicly attacked “the son of a master” for alleged interference. Ali Khamenei defended his son with the famous phrase: “He is not the son of a master, he is himself a master.”
THE VETO IN 2024
In 2024 the Assembly of Experts met to discuss the succession mechanisms.
On that occasion, Khamenei himself explicitly declared that his son Mojtaba should be excluded from the list of possible successors, probably to try to quell controversies over the dynastic nature of the appointment.
Mojtaba’s designation would indeed risk being perceived as a return to hereditary logic, exactly what the 1979 Revolution had overthrown by deposing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Such a move could fuel popular discontent, which had already erupted in economic protests that turned into open regime opposition in the months before the leader’s death.
THE REASSURING SIGNAL TO THE HAWKS
According to some analysts, appointing Mojtaba would instead send a clear message: the hardest sectors linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps firmly maintain control.
Continuity would be guaranteed, with little prospect of opening or political line change in the short to medium term.
Adding to this is a family and religious element. The Iranian government has announced that in the attack that killed Ali Khamenei in his compound in Tehran, Mojtaba’s wife, Zahra Adel, his mother Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh, and one of his children also died.
This multiple loss heightens the personal tragedy and could paradoxically strengthen the martyrdom and legitimacy narrative among the regime’s most loyal supporters.
In summary, concludes the New York Times, Mojtaba Khamenei embodies the most controversial yet at the same time the most “natural” figure for succession: a cleric with strong military ties, accustomed to submerged power, albeit burdened by the weight of a dynastic legacy that risks delegitimizing the entire system in the eyes of a significant part of the population.
His possible rise, the newspaper observes, will depend on the ability of the Pasdaran and conservatives to impose their line within Iranian religious and political institutions.
