After Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in US-Israeli airstrikes on Saturday, the Islamic Republic must choose a successor to lead the country.
An 88-member panel made up of Shiite clerics, known as the Assembly of Experts, will select the next leader under Iranian law, but it is unclear who will follow Khamenei, who ruled the country with an iron grip for almost 37 years.
It is also unclear how the US and President Donald Trump will react if a hardliner leader is put in place.
The news of Khamenei’s assassination was met with different reactions across Iran, with some people taking to the streets to celebrate – videos showed them dancing and cheering – while others came out to mourn the loss of the 86-year-old leader.
His death is one of the most significant blows to Iran’s leadership since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Many Iranians, both inside and outside the country, are hopeful that his death could herald the end of a brutal regime, but there is still uncertainty as to what will happen next.
HA Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, said that one of the main problems is that “there isn’t a unified opposition”.
This means that, during the recent widespread protestors, some Iranians looked to those outside the country to aid them.
Protesters burning images of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during a rally in front of the Iranian consulate in Italy, 17 January, 2026. (Photo: Claudia Greco/Reuters)The Iranian regime has also prepared for the possible death of Khamenei and has others likely in mind to succeed him.
Anahita Motazed Rad, a visiting senior fellow on international relations at the London School of Economics, said that “many Iranians I speak with believe that ending this repressive regime is impossible without international support”.
How a Supreme Leader is chosen
Iran’s Leadership Council will govern the country until a new leader is elected by the Assembly of Experts.
The Leadership Council is made up of President Masoud Pezeshkian and Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei. Alireza Arafi, a cleric member of the Guardian Council, was also appointed on Sunday.
Members of the Assembly of Experts are elected by popular vote, but are first vetted by the Guardian Council – made up of 12 members, six of whom were chosen by the Supreme Leader and the other six by the Iranian Parliament.
It has been claimed in the past that the committee’s two favoured candidates are Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba Khamenei, and Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the father of the Islamic revolution, Ruhollah Khomeini.
Mojtaba Khamenei
Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, attending a rally in Tehran in May 2019 (Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Iranian government insiders have long claimed that Mojtaba Khamenei is the favourite to replace his father. However, Khamenei didn’t publicly express his preference for who he would like to succeed him.
There are also reports that Mojtaba Khamenei may have been killed in the air strikes over the weekend.
Khamenei was granted the title of ayatollah in 2021, a constitutional requirement to serve as leader of the Iranian regime. He also has forged strong ties with both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran’s clerical establishment.
Khamenei is said to be an influential figure in the Iran regime’s decision making.
Motazed Rad said: “Motjaba Khamenei has long been seen as a possible successor because of his influence inside his father’s office, but Iran doesn’t have a hereditary system. If the Ayatollah was to create a dynastical rule, I think that contradicts the revolution, even the founding ideology.”
Hassan Khomeini
Another contender with historical links to the regime is cleric Hassan Khomeini.
Khomeini has a more moderate stance on domestic affairs, believing that Iran should allow greater social freedoms. Yet despite his beliefs clashing with more hardline elements in the government, Khomeini still commands a lot of respect because of his family.
Hassan Khomeini, the grandchild of Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, attending the opening ceremony of a hospital in Tehran in January 2025 (Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Last June, sources claimed he was considered as a serious candidate to replace Khamenei because he could represent a more conciliatory choice, internationally and domestically.
Khomeini also has close links to the reformist sections of Iranian politics, which pushed for an unsuccessful policy of opening Iran to the outside world in the 1990s. This saw him barred from running as a member of senior clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, in 2016.
According to the insiders, Khomeini commands respect among senior clerics and the Revolutionary Guards because of his lineage, despite favouring the easing of social and political restrictions.
“If he will offer a different Iran away from the current ideology, he could be an option,” Motazed Rad told The i Paper, although she adds that he is not the strongest or primary candidate.
The current uncertainty means that there are others outside of Iran’s political elite who could find themselves in power.
Reza Pahlavi
Reza Pahlavi is perhaps the most well-known, and therefore most visible, opposition figure. He is the son of Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, the former monarch of Iran who was overthrown in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
After leaving Iran in 1978, Pahlavi has mainly lived in the US and while in exile has criticised the Iranian regime and has called for nonviolent change in the country.
Reza Pahlavi, an Iranian opposition leader and son of the last shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in Paris in June 2025 (Photo: Joel Saget/AFP)On Saturday, following the news of Khamenei’s death, Pahlavi posted on X that the Islamic Republic has “in effect reached its end and will very soon be consigned to the dustbin of history”.
“Any attempt by the remnants of the regime to appoint a successor to Khamenei is doomed to fail from the outset,” he added. “Whoever they place in his stead will have neither legitimacy nor longevity, and will undoubtedly be complicit in the crimes of this regime as well.”
Pahlavi has support from monarchists, who consider his father’s era one where Iran was more prosperous and had closer ties to the West.
But over the past decades, Pahlavi has made multiple failed attempts to build an opposition coalition, which suggests he may struggle to gain widespread support for any leadership bid.
Hellyer described Pahlavi as a “Persian nationalist monarchist”.
“If people are thinking [Pahlavi] is going to take over Iran, I really find that quite extraordinary. I don’t think that he’s got the support base inside of the country,” he added.
“Outside of the country, of course, he’s got a lot of support among elite circles in the West, whether it be in Washington, London or Berlin, particularly on the right. But I don’t think that he’s got sufficient support on the ground… even in the diaspora, he’s a very controversial figure.”
Hellyer said that Pahlavi “has become an opposition figure because he is the son of the former Shah and has good political connections in the West, not because of any leadership that he has shown.”
He also polarised opinions when he visited Israel in 2023, where he met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Other options
Motazed Rad said that there is the possibility of more moderate political insiders, such as the previous president, Hassan Rouhani, or even some moderate figures inside the Revolutionary Guard, coming to power and creating a new state with minimal structural changes.
The IRGC is one of the most powerful factions within the country, with deep involvement in Iranian politics, economics and society.
However, it was designated a terrorist organisation by the EU in January, which could cause issues if someone with that background were to lead the country (although Syria’s current president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, previously had a $10m bounty on his head).
Masoud Pezeshkian, the current president, is another option. While Iran has an elected president, power lies for the most part in the hands of the supreme leader.
Pezeshkian became Iran’s ninth president after his immediate predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi, died in a helicopter crash in May 2024.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian at the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September 2024 (Photo: Caitlin Ochs/Reuters)Motazed Rad said that Pezeshkian could be one possible actor in Iran’s future governance following a regime collapse, while also emphasising that he remains a figure emerging from within the existing system and appointed by its leadership.
She also pointed out that Pezeshkian’s 2024 presidential victory came amid historically low public turnout — within an electoral process widely viewed as tightly managed.
What the West wants
After Khamenei’s assassination, the West will be looking for someone who could stabilise the situation in Iran and who they could work with. Much would depend on what happens on the ground.
“One possible scenario, alongside those already discussed, could involve a temporary American-led international committee to prevent a power vacuum like that has been seen all too often across the Middle East,” Motazed Rad said.
“This could be followed by a gradual transition toward a new political system, though leadership of any reformed new state would remain uncertain.”
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She added that American and Israeli officials have openly stated their focus is on countering the power of the Ayatollahs and the IRGC, “while emphasising that the future of Iran should ultimately be determined by Iranians themselves — whether figures inside the country or in the diaspora.”
Trump’s recent foreign policy moves may also serve as an indicator for his possible plans for Iran.
After his intervention in Venezuela in January, the US left most of the structure of the Venezuelan government intact, with the country’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, taking over as acting president.
Trump also made it clear that he expected Venezuela’s new leader to play ball, or risk a similar fate to her predecessor. Iran may find itself in a similar position.
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