How the President of Iran will be elected

Khamenei, aged 85, succeeded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as Iran’s supreme leader in 1989 and is a former president of Iran. As Iran’s head of state he is also responsible for the Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), long regarded as a key base of his power. Khamenei is officially regarded as a marja’ – or source of religious emulation under Iran’s system of Shia clerical governance despite controversy over his lack of clerical standing at the time he became supreme leader. The question of who will succeed Khamenei, who has been treated for prostate cancer and has other health issues, has become more pressing in recent years as he had groomed and elevated key loyalists like Raisi, the president who died on Sunday.