Iran acting president a conservative with ties to Khamenei

With the death of Prez

Ebrahim Raisi

,

Iran

's first vice-president, Mohammad Mokhber, becomes

acting president

. Mokhber is a

conservative

political operative with a long history of involvement in large business conglomerates closely tied to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a statement Monday, Khamenei said that Mokhber must work with the heads of the legislature and judiciary to hold elections for a new president within 50 days.

Vice-presidents in Iran are typically low profile, operating more as players within the govt than as public figures.
Mokhber is around 68 years old and became first vice president in August 2021. He is originally from Khuzestan province in Iran's southwest. He was a deputy governor there, and during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s served as a member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard medical corps. One of Mokhber's relatively few high-profile appearances came when he and three other senior Iranian officials went to Moscow in Oct 2022 to complete a sale of Iranian drones and ballistic missiles to Russia, for use in Ukraine.
Raisi chose him as vice-president after Mokhber held senior positions in some of Iran's most powerful organisations, including the Mostazafan Foundation, Sina Bank and Setad, a conglomerate entirely controlled by Khamenei that has billions of dollars in assets and was involved in efforts to make and distribute a Covid-19 vaccine.

All three organisations are part of an opaque network of financial entities that are tied to the Iran state, although they are not directly state-owned. They are also connected to projects that are priorities for the supreme leader and his inner circle.
Mokhber's involvement suggests that he has been a successful behind-the-scenes player who is familiar with the financing networks that are important to the official Iranian power structure.

The Mostazafan Foundation, where Mokhber worked in the early 2000s, is officially a charity but is described by the US treasury as "a key patronage network for the supreme leader" that includes holdings in key sectors of Iran's economy, including finance, energy, construction and mining. It is the subject of sanctions by the US treasury because it is controlled by Khamenei, and the treasury said it was created in part "to confiscate and manage property, including that originally belonging to minorities" in Iran, including Baha'is and Jews. The Sina Bank has faced sanctions by the US treasury and the EU for financing Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programme.
Mokhber appears to have risen to the top of Iran's political leadership in part because of the close relationship he developed with Khamenei, dating from at least 2007 when he joined the leadership of Setad. Within a few months of his appointment, Mokhber had founded the Barakat Foundation, which has a number of companies under its aegis including a major medical and pharm company. (NYT)
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