A contested succession, seven months of invisibility, a depleted ruling hierarchy, and internal fractures point to a deeper crisis at the heart of the regime.
Seven months after Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded his father as the Iranian regime’s supreme leader, a growing contradiction is becoming difficult to conceal. Officials insist he remains in control and retains final authority over major decisions. Yet the political stature traditionally associated with the office is eroding.
Recent remarks by veteran regime insider Mohammad-Reza Bahonar sharpened that question. Bahonar, a former deputy speaker of parliament and current member of the Expediency Council, said Iran’s younger generation no longer wants a political or intellectual authority telling it how to think, adding that “the country does not need a sheikh and savior.” He was not explicitly calling for an end to the supreme leadership. But in a system built around velayat-e faqih—the rule of an all-powerful clerical authority—the language is striking.
A recent analysis by the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), argues that Bahonar’s remarks reflect a broader erosion of the culture of unquestioning obedience on which the ruling system depends, particularly among younger Iranians.
The Office Remains, but the Authority Has Weakened
Mojtaba Khamenei is not powerless. Reuters reported in August that senior officials said he remains engaged in major decisions and retains the final say. But the same reporting described a reconfigured leadership in which the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Supreme National Security Council play central strategic roles.
Reuters found in March that Mojtaba inherited the supreme leader’s extensive formal powers but not the automatic authority his father commanded, while the IRGC assumed an increasingly central role after the regime’s senior command structure was largely destroyed.
His prolonged invisibility has compounded the problem. More than seven months after the war began, Mojtaba has made no verified public appearance, and no photograph, video, or audio recording has been released. Reuters reported that even some regime loyalists regard that absence as damaging to confidence in the leadership.
Soona Samsami, the NCRI’s Representative in the United States, said: “Mojtaba Khamenei inherited the leadership of a regime already severely battered—confronted by a deeply disaffected population and the prospect of another social explosion, shaken to its core by the nationwide January uprising and the massacres that followed.” She added, “The supreme leader’s weak position after Ali Khamenei’s death is irreparable, and the next round of uprising is imminent.”
A Contested Succession
Maryam Rajavi, President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) for the transitional period, questioned the legitimacy of Mojtaba’s succession from the outset.
When his appointment was announced in March, she said: “The absolute clerical rule … has effectively turned itself into a hereditary monarchy by placing Mojtaba Khamenei on the throne.”
In July, Mrs. Rajavi focused directly on how he obtained the position: “It was only by exploiting the wartime and emergency conditions following his father’s death that he was able to become the supreme leader.”
Mrs. Rajavi said at least 40 of the Assembly of Experts’ 84 members refused to vote for Mojtaba and cited an Assembly member who said the ballots were never formally counted before a senior member announced that he had secured a decisive majority. She identified his contested position as a factor intensifying factional conflict and argued that the supreme leader’s hegemony within the regime itself was endangered.
By September, she summarized the broader crisis as a combination of economic collapse, social unrest, factional infighting, and “a leader who lacks his father’s authority.”
Mojtaba Khamenei’s diminishing stature increasingly mirrors the regime’s condition: increasingly reliant on repression for survival, yet politically weakened and internally fractured.
About the Iranian Resistance
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) is a coalition advocating a democratic, secular republic in Iran. Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s President-elect for the transitional period, has outlined a Ten-Point Plan for a future democratic Iran. The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), also known as the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), is the NCRI’s principal organized movement.