People gather to stage a demonstration after the announcement that Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been killed in U.S.-Israeli attacks in Tehran, Iran, on Sunday.Hossein Esmaeili/The Globe and Mail
Three men have been appointed as Iran’s interim leadership council while the country’s religious leaders choose who will succeed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The trio are not natural allies, nor is it immediately clear who will outrank the others.
Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, 67, is a senior cleric who carries a high rank in a country where religion is the fundamental basis of the state. He is a member of the Guardian Council that vets candidates for president and has veto power over legislation, to ensure loyalty to and conformity with Sharia law.
Women walk past electoral posters of Ayatollah Alireza Arafi in downtown Tehran, in February, 2024.Vahid Salemi/The Associated Press
He leads prayers in Iran’s most important religious centre, Qom, and oversees education for religious leaders nationwide, notes the news organization Al-Jazeera.
His path to a senior role in Iran’s government began as a child, according to the Middle East Institute. “His entire career has been shaped by appointments given to him by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,” a paper published by the think tank in 2020 said. “In fact, Arafi may even be a candidate to succeed Khamenei when the day comes.”
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Ayatollah Arafi, who comes from a clerical family, moved to Qom to further his religious studies at the age of 11. Although he was too young to play a major role in the 1979 revolution in Iran, his influence began to grow when Ayatollah Khamenei became Iran’s Supreme Leader in 1989.
Ayatollah Arafi was appointed to lead Friday prayers in his hometown of Meybod in 1992, when he was only 33 years old. He has also served as director of Iran’s nationwide seminary system and as a member of the Assembly of Experts, a body of 88 senior clerics who will now choose Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor.
President Masoud Pezeshkian, 71, is broadly seen as a reformist. A former heart surgeon, Mr. Pezeshkian took office on July 28, 2024. The president is the second-highest ranking official in Iran, acting as the head of government that handles daily administration, economic policy and implements the Supreme Leader’s decrees.
Masoud Pezeshkian, the President of Iran, attends the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 25, 2025.Angelina Katsanis/The Associated Press
Iranians elect a president and parliament for four-year terms, although candidates for office are vetted by the Guardian Council.
The Economic Times of India describes Mr. Pezeshkian as a technocrat known for his calm demeanour in turbulent times, including nationwide protests over the rising cost of living in January.
Mr. Pezeshkian initially met with business leaders and promised to try to address their concerns, but dissent was bloodily crushed by security forces after Ayatollah Khamenei declared that “rioters must be put in their place.” Thousands of Iranians were killed in January’s protests.
The President campaigned on themes of reform: economic stabilization, easing social restrictions and pursuing constructive engagement abroad. He tried but failed to negotiate an agreement with the United States after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to intervene in the deadly crackdown on protestors.
A timeline of the protests in Iran and how they grew
In February, Mr. Pezeshkian instructed Iran’s foreign minister to “pursue fair and equitable negotiations” with the U.S., the first clear sign from Tehran it wanted to try to negotiate.
Reacting to Ayatollah Khamenei’s assassination, Mr. Pezeshkian said in a statement that Iran now considers “it its legitimate duty and right to avenge the perpetrators and masterminds of this historic crime.”
In a recorded video statement on state television Sunday, Mr. Pezeshkian said that the interim leadership council has started its work, and that Iran’s armed forces will continue to destroy enemy bases.
Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, 69, is considered an ultra-conservative who has been sanctioned for human rights abuses by Canada, the U.S., Switzerland, the European Union and others. He was appointed to the post in 2021 by Ayatollah Khamenei.
Iranian Chief Justice Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei in Tehran.Iranian Presidency/Reuters
A report from the human rights watchdog organization Faces of Crime said Mr. Ejei “has been instrumental in suppressing, torturing, and obtaining forced confessions from protesters against the 2009 presidential election results” when he served as Iran’s Minister of Intelligence and later as Attorney-General.
He also played a role on the Press Supervisory Board in a crackdown on reform-minded media in 2000, which led to the arrest of journalists and the closure of news publications in the country.
Political analysts at the Gulf States Newsletter describe him as a hardliner and loyalist to Ayatollah Khamenei, who is known for his harsh sentencing.
But the London-based news operation Iran International noted last year Mr. Ejei has recently distanced himself from the country’s staunchest hardliners: He has promoted an anti-corruption agenda, and sided with moderates who had pushed back against a new, stricter hijab law.
Mr. Ejei holds a master’s degree in international law, according to the judiciary’s website. He carries the clerical title of hojatoleslam – one rank below an ayatollah.
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While the three men temporarily hold power, experts said Sunday the interim council may prove to be just a footnote in Iran’s history.
Rex Brynen, a professor in the department of political science at McGill University and an expert in Middle East politics, said the composition of the interim council may be less important than broader pressures, given the challenges of transition, the likelihood of further strikes against leadership targets, and degraded Iranian military command and control.
“That being said, it suggests continuity in the Iranian approach, not any dramatic shift in strategic thinking,” he said.
Parsa Alirezaei, a research assistant at the Centre for Comparative Muslim Studies at Simon Fraser University, shared similar sentiments. The focus, he said, should be on Ali Larijani, the veteran politician and current head of the Supreme National Security Council who announced the interim council on Sunday, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the former Tehran mayor who is now Iran’s parliament speaker.
“As high-ranking and well-embedded members of the political and security elite in the Islamic Republic who have survived the initial salvos of this war, they wield significant and growing power relative to other members of the elite,” Mr. Alirezaei said of the two men Sunday.
He added that internal power dynamic uncertainty suggests that the two men may have an advantage over others “given that they straddle the political and security apparatuses of the country and have done so for some time.”
Mr. Alirezaei noted that, after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s death in 1989, Iran quickly amended its constitution and power structure to secure Ayatollah Khamenei’s rule and deter threats from adversaries seeking to take advantage of internal turmoil.
He said he could see similar measures taken this time around, with even greater urgency – but added that urgency does not necessarily mean deviation from protocol.
“In fact, recent statements by the Guardian Council on the transition process suggest adhering to constitutional provisions,” Mr. Alirezaei said.
“They want to show that their institutions remain strong and steadfast. By deviating from that, they would risk signalling to their adversaries that their behaviour, as well as their institutions, can be altered through force.”
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