Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi, and Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, remain missing after their helicopter was involved in an accident

Iran’s President, Ebrahim Raisi, and Foreign Minister, Hossein Amirabdollahian, remain missing after their helicopter was involved in an accident in the mountainous East Azerbaijan province.

As per Al Jazeera, if there’s a sudden death, Iran’s constitution states that Mohammad Mokhber, the current first vice president, would become president with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s approval.

In Iran’s political structure, Supreme Leader Khamenei is the head of state, while the president is the head of government, considered second-in-command.

If the second-in-command position becomes vacant, the first vice president would assume leadership until a new president is elected within 50 days.

Moreover, Raisi, a former hardline judiciary chief, is Iran’s eighth president.

The former prosecutor and judge was elected in 2021 following a historically uncompetitive presidential contest.

Born in 1960, he went to a religious school in Qom and got a Ph.D. in law from Shahid Motahari University.

Additionally, he began as a prosecutor in the early 1980s and went on to hold key positions such as prosecutor general of Tehran in 1994, prosecutor general of Iran in 2014, and eventually became the country’s chief justice in 2019.