Ebrahim Raisi, serving as the President of Iran and a major candidate to perpetuate the nation’s supreme leadership, died aged 63 in a helicopter crash in May 2024. Born in Mashad, a city in northeastern Iran, on 14th December 1960, Raisi belonged to a family with clerical lineage. In his youth, at the age of 18, he took part in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which resulted in the fall of Iran’s Shah.
As a hardline Shia Islamic cleric, Raisi was at the forefront of some of the harshest oppressions against the Islamic Republic’s opponents. He was a staunch disciple of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and was deeply committed to maintaining religious governance within the state. Later, at a mere 20 years of age, he was appointed a judge in the newly formed Islamic Republic, initiating his gradual rise to the pinnacle of Iran’s political sphere.
Raisi’s presidential tenure was dictated by two mammoth events. The first half was dominated by a nationwide insurrection in 2022, driven primarily by women and girls, rallying against the Islamic Republic’s rule. The second significant incident was the government’s ruthless suppression of this revolt, on the one hand, and the ongoing Middle Eastern war with Israel, on the other.
Raisi did not establish the country’s nuclear or territorial policies as President, but he assumed leadership of a government that was solidifying its regional presence through affiliated militia organisations and a burgeoning nuclear programme advancing towards weapons-grade uranium enrichment. Raisi ratified and supported these strategies and saw them as indispensable for Iran to sustain its regional dominance and exert clout over Western powers.
His untimely death unfolded just as a covert war, stretching over many years, escalated into a full-blown confrontation following Israel’s military strikes on the Gaza Strip as retribution for Hamas’ attacks on Israeli soil on 7th October.
Like his mentor Khamenei and predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the initiator of the Islamic Revolution, Raisi wore a cleric’s ebony turban, exclusive to ‘sayyids’— individuals linked to Prophet Muhammad through ancestry.
The topic of who will take up the mantle of leadership in Iran has grown increasingly important as Khamenei is now 85 and in poor health. The process of choosing the next supreme leader is a complex interplay of politics and competition, carried out behind closed doors, with the ultimate decision lying in the hands of an elected group of religious figures known as the Assembly of Experts.
Raisi was seen as a leading potential candidate for the esteemed role, with a strong backing from the hardline group, just like Mojtaba, Khamenei’s son, who holds significant influence as an integral part of his father’s administrative team. With Raisi’s passing, Mojtaba Khamenei’s path to taking up his father’s role has essentially been cleared.
Sanam Vakil, head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, described Raisi as a lacklustre public figure; his speeches didn’t inspire mass fervour. He enacted policies rather than inspiring people. Crucially, Raisi was a diehard stalwart of the regime, implementing and operating within the system.
Raisi’s strong-handed imposition of strict religious and social regulations, his intolerance for opposition, and his efforts to pivot Iran’s alliances away from the West and towards Russia and China, were all lauded by his supporters, including conservative commentators on Iranian state media.
He previously led the Astan Quds Razavi from 2016-2019, a highly influential, multimillion-pound religious business which is controlled by Khamenei and considered one of Khamenei’s key wealth sources. He took over as the chief of Iran’s judiciary in 2019, during which time he supervised harsh suppressions of dissent. A crackdown on nation-wide protests sparked by increased fuel prices in November 2019, resulted in at least 500 deaths. Under his leadership, the judiciary detained activists, journalists, legal practitioners, and dual nationality citizens.
His ascent to the presidency in 2021 was viewed by many as a manipulated outcome to ensure his triumph.
Raisi entered the presidency with claims of battling graft, despite facing criticism from domestic and international detractors, along with human rights organisations. These groups have shed light on Raisi’s involvement in a panel of four who controversially mandated the execution of some 5,000 political opponents in 1988 without a trial, marking the end of the Iran-Iraq war. Despite not denying his role in the panel, Raisi claimed he was merely a subordinate officer, appointed by the supreme leader of the time. Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the Centre for Human Rights in Iran, lamented the loss of a generation of potential influential figures in Iranian society. According to Ghaemi, Raisi was implicated in some of Iran’s most oppressive episodes, particularly the strict repression of anti-government demonstrations in 2009 and 2022.
Raisi assumed power three years after Donald Trump, as president, abandoned the nuclear pact between Iran and global powers. Following America’s withdrawal, Trump reinstituted stringent economic sanctions on Iran, severely affecting its oil trade and banking sector. Subsequently, the advantages of the nuclear agreement failed to materialise for Iran, leading it to resume uranium enrichment at nearly weapon-grade levels.
Upon inauguration, Raisi pledged to adopt a “resistance diplomacy” strategy. This involved resistance to Western powers whilst maintaining receptiveness to dialogue, specifically with the United States, with the objective of reinstating the nuclear pact and the elimination of sanctions. However, the discussions throughout 2021 were unsuccessful, and no agreement with the Biden administration has yet been made.
One of Raisi’s notable successes in foreign policy during his presidency was accomplishing what his forerunners could not: restoring relations with Iran’s historical regional foe, Saudi Arabia. In 2023, they sealed an agreement in Beijing to rekindle diplomatic ties— a largely symbolic yet significant step towards easing their regional competition.
Raisi prioritised cultivating closer ties with Russia and China and deviating from the West, asserting that the United States and Europe could not be trusted following the nuclear deal’s collapse. Under Raisi, the Iranian government struck a comprehensive 25-year agreement with China spanning economics, security and military sectors. The terms of the deal involved Iran supplying discounted oil to China in return for Chinese companies investing $400 billion across a variety of sectors in Iran.
President Raisi frequently journeyed to Moscow for meetings with his Russian equivalent, Vladimir Putin, strengthening both military and security associations in the process. Despite denying it, there have been reports that Iran dealt drones to Russia, which were utilised in the Ukrainian conflict.
Under President Raisi’s leadership, the effects on Iran’s domestic policies were immense, resulting in a complex legacy. During his presidency, Iran experienced significant economic declines caused by multinational penalties and skyrocketing joblessness. Sina Azodi, who tutors on Iranian matters at George Washington University, commented, “Under his stewardship, Iran’s economy has crumbled, and repression has escalated. Iran has never truly been democratic or unrestricted, but the political suppression has aggravated since 2021. Dissenting voices are not permitted.”
Raisi presided over an aggressive response to anti-government demonstrations that broke out in 2022, following the custodial demise of a 21-year-old Kurdish lady named Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police. This event ignited a string of protests chiefly led by women who discarded their headscarves and demanded the Islamic Republic’s overthrow.
Following numerous instances of Iranian women flouting the obligatory hijab law, appearing publicly without a hair cover for over a year, Raisi declared in the spring that he aimed to strictly enforce the hijab rule. His government redeployed the morality police in April, leading to multiple cases of women being arrested violently.
Raisi’s survivors include his wife Jamileh Alamolhoda, an academic in philosophy and education, and the daughter of the stringent cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda. They have two daughters and at least one grandchild together.