Mojtaba Khamenei has reportedly been chosen as Iran’s next Supreme Leader, state media reported on Sunday (March 8, 2026)

The announcement by the Iranian Assembly of Experts came just over a week after the death of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on February 28, 2026 in joint Israeli and US attacks.

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The 56-year-old mid-ranking cleric, who survived the US-Israel air war against Iran, was named his successor after the council had more or less reached a “majority consensus.” Assembly of Experts member Ayatollah Mohsen Heidari Alekasir said in a video on Sunday (March 8, 2026) that a candidate had been selected based on Khamenei’s guidance that Iran’s top leader should be “hated by the enemy.”

Read also | A look at some of the contenders to be Iran’s supreme leader after Khamenei’s assassination

Who is Mojtaba Khamenei?

Mojtaba Khamenei is the second son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Mansoureh Khojasteh Bagherzadeh. He was born on September 6, 1969 in Mashhad, a major Shiite religious center in northeastern Iran. He has five siblings: three brothers and two sisters.

Childhood in the midst of the father’s revolution

Mojtaba spent most of his childhood amid his father’s active resistance against the monarchy of the Shah of Iran, which ultimately led to the election of Ali Khamenei as the country’s Supreme Leader and the exercise of significant political and military power.

With his father being repeatedly arrested by SAVAK(the shah secret police), much of Mr. Mojtaba’s childhood was spent in frequent raids and riots.

After the 1979 revolution, the family moved to Tehran, where Mr. Mojtaba attended the prestigious Alavi High School.

He also studied under religious conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, the center of Shia theological learning in Iran, and holds the clerical rank of Hojjatoleslam.

military life

Mr. Mojtaba joined the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) shortly after completing his education and reportedly formed lifelong bonds with comrades who later held senior positions in the Iranian military establishment.

He also served in the Habib Battalion during the final years of the 1987-88 Iraq-Israel war.

shadow power

Mojtaba is neither considered a major leader of the Iranian establishment nor a high-ranking religious scholar. He has never been elected and does not hold any formal government position. He has appeared at loyalist rallies but has rarely spoken in public. However, he is widely believed to have headed the Office of the Supreme Leader and has reportedly been “surveilling” it due to his deep ties to the IRGC and intelligence services.

He has also opposed reformers seeking dialogue with the West as it tries to curb Iran’s nuclear program.

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Mojtaba in 2019, saying he represented the supreme leader “in an official capacity even though he was never elected or appointed to a government position,” other than working in “his father’s office.”

His website said Khamenei had previously delegated some of his responsibilities to Mojtaba, who he said had worked closely with the commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force and the Basij, a religious militia affiliated with the Guards, “to advance his father’s destabilizing regional ambitions and oppressive domestic objectives.”

What does his succession mean for Iran?

Mojtaba’s selection is historic because the Iranian establishment has long rejected the idea of ​​hereditary succession from father to son. This is also seen as unfavorable by Shia clerics. Therefore, his appointment will represent a departure from traditional political and religious norms.

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

In 2024, a video in which he announced the suspension of the Islamic jurisprudence classes he taught in Qom was widely shared, fueling speculation about the reasons.

He was widely believed to have been behind the sudden rise of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was elected president in 2005. He also backed Ahmadinejad in 2009, when he won a second term in a disputed election that led to anti-government protests that were violently suppressed by the Basij and other security forces.

Mojtaba’s appointment as Supreme Leader will mean a continuation of the legacy of the late Ali Khamenei, in a sign that hardliners were “still firmly in charge”.

With contributions from Reuters