Tehran. After hours of searching, the wreckage of the presidential helicopter is found in the Iranian mountains. State media confirms the death of the prisoners. The Islamic Republic faces a political crisis.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Foreign Minister Hussein Amirabdollahian died when their helicopter crashed in Iran. None of the nine prisoners survived, state news agency IRNA and state television reported. Initially there was no official information about the cause of the accident.
Raisi was returning from a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev along with Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian on Sunday afternoon when their plane disappeared from radar amid thick fog. Together they opened a dam in the neighboring country. The delegation then returned to Iran with a total of three helicopters, but the presidential plane did not reach its destination.
Speculation then arose whether the accident was due to bad weather, a technical defect in the helicopter or even sabotage. There was no clarity on this until morning.
Iran’s air force is considered very obsolete, its modernization has made little progress in the face of strict international sanctions and it is difficult to obtain spare parts. Many planes and helicopters date back to before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the country had close relations with the United States. Serious accidents and collisions occur repeatedly.
Iran faces political crisis
Rescuers spent hours searching for the crash site in torrential rain, fog and difficult terrain before discovering the wreckage of the helicopter on a hillside early in the morning. Iranian media showed images of completely burned wreckage.
Iran’s first vice president, Mohammed Mochber, chaired an emergency cabinet meeting on Sunday night. Protocol stipulates that the first vice president continues as head of government after the president’s death. According to the Constitution, new elections must then take place within 50 days.
The accident will likely plunge the Islamic Republic into a political crisis. Due to the lack of alternatives, the search for a long-term successor to Raisi will be difficult. And Amirabdollahian, in particular, became increasingly known to the public as foreign minister since the start of the Gaza war and made numerous trips to allies.
Government criticized for repressive policies
While government supporters mourned the statesmen, several Iranians expressed their joy at the helicopter crash on social media. Raisi’s government has been criticized for years due to its ultra-conservative values, the suppression of civil rights and the serious economic crisis in Iran.
Religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei assured on Sunday that government business would not be affected under any circumstances. “There will be no interruption to the country’s activities,” he said, citing state agency IRNA.
Raisi was sworn in as the new president in August 2021. The arch-conservative cleric officially became the successor to Hassan Rouhani, who was no longer allowed to run after two terms. As the main candidate of political hardliners and the preferred candidate and protégé of religious leader Khamenei, Raisi won the presidential election with almost 62 percent of the vote.
Iran has been in the headlines more recently, also because there appeared to be a threat of a regional war with its archenemy Israel. During Raisi’s tenure, the Islamic Republic deepened its economic and military cooperation with China and Russia, and relations with the West cooled, among other things due to the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program. The West also accused the leadership in Tehran of serious human rights violations. However, a few days ago there were again reports of new indirect talks with the US in the Gulf state of Oman.
Religious hardliners: Raisi as a man of the system
Raisi was born in Mashhad in 1960 and worked in the country’s central judicial authority for more than three decades. In 2019 he was appointed chief justice. In his previous role as public prosecutor, he was responsible for numerous arrests and executions of political dissidents in 1988, which is why his opponents gave him the nickname “The Butcher of Tehran”.
Meanwhile, experts also treated Raisi as a possible successor to Khamenei, who turned 85 in April. Although criticism from the younger generation is now increasingly directed against the entire Islamic Republic system, Raisi was particularly under pressure domestically. Recently, the government has moved forward with its controversial policy of forcing people to wear headscarves, thus further alienating parts of the population.
Raisi’s death will likely spark a power struggle
If the presidential post has to be filled, a violent power struggle is likely to erupt in Tehran, wrote Iranian expert Arash Azizi in an analysis for the US magazine “The Atlantic”. Raisi’s passivity encouraged challengers among the radicals. They would see his weak presidency as an opportunity, Azizi wrote. “Raisi’s death would change the balance of power between factions within the Islamic Republic.”
© dpa-infocom, dpa:240520-99-97085/5 (dpa)