How will Iran elect its Supreme Leader and who will be next?

The death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei following joint US-Israeli airstrikes has pushed Iran’s leadership into an urgent process of electing a new supreme leader.

Under Iran’s constitution, the Supreme Leader is appointed by the Council of Experts, an 88-member clerical body elected by the public every eight years. Candidates for the Assembly are first vetted by the Guardian Council, which tightly controls who can run.

When a position becomes vacant, the congregation convenes to deliberate and elect a successor. A decision requires a simple majority vote.

In the interim, a temporary three-member leadership council will assume the duties of supreme leader until a replacement is formally appointed.

Local media reported on Sunday that the Provisional Council includes President Masoud Pezheshkian, Judiciary Chief Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-AJ and Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, who is acting as a representative of the Guardian Council.

The council’s powers are strictly transitional, but the Assembly of Experts retains the sole constitutional authority to choose Iran’s next supreme leader.

On Polymarket, traders are pricing Mohseni-Eji at a narrow lead of around 18%. Other major contenders include Arafi and Iranian cleric Hassan Khomeini.

The “Position Abolished” result is trading closely, while markets are still leaning toward an individual successor, indicating that there is meaningful speculation about a potential structural change to the office.

Here are some of the top contenders:

Mohseni-Ezee has been Iran’s chief justice since July 2021, overseeing the country’s judiciary and overseeing legal policy across the Islamic Republic.

Prior to that, he served as Prosecutor-General from 2009 to 2014, First Deputy Head of the Judiciary and Spokesperson from 2014 to 2021, and previously held national security roles including Minister of Intelligence from 2005 to 2009.

He is a long-time member of the Expediency Discernment Council, a key advisory body to Iran’s leadership, and his career spans senior positions in both the judiciary and the security apparatus.

Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, could theoretically act as a bridge between the revolutionary system and reform-minded sectors, the Council on Foreign Relations said.

The CFR suggested that elevating someone like him would help preserve the basic structure of the Islamic Republic, ease Iran’s international isolation and address popular discontent at home.

Arafi is an Iranian senior cleric and an influential figure in the Islamic Republic’s religious and political ranks. He has risen through the clerical establishment with a series of important appointments, including director of Iran’s seminaries, Friday prayer leader in Qom and member of the Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts.

Arafi’s roles in shaping theological education and vetting political candidates made him central to Iran’s clerical power structure.

Under Article 111 of Iran’s constitution, the death or incapacity of the supreme leader immediately triggers the formation of an interim leadership council to exercise his powers until a successor is chosen.

The constitution does not set a strict deadline for the Assembly of Experts to appoint a new leader, but says the assembly must act “within the shortest possible time.”

However, analysts warn that a formal succession process could be fraught with intense elite bargaining and broader geopolitical uncertainty.

Although Mohseni-Ezee, emeritus professor of the University of Western Australia, Amin Cykel, appears to be the front-runner, the panel of experts could choose another member, or even an outsider.

“There’s going to be a lot of horse-trading,” he told CNBC, adding that “whoever emerges may be compromised.”

A hardline successor could continue Khamenei’s confrontational stance and security-first policies, he said, while a more moderate figure could seek limited reforms aimed at easing domestic sanctions and improving foreign relations to relieve sanctions pressure.

Separately, Michael McFall, a former US ambassador to Russia and Stanford University professor, noted that historically air operations have rarely led to regime toppling, questioning how current US strikes targeting military assets rather than internal means of repression would translate into the broader regime change suggested by Washington.