Mohamed Mokhber Appointed Acting Iranian President After Deadly Helicopter Crash

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appointed First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber interim president on Monday, following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash over the weekend.

Raisi, 63, was killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and several other officials while returning from a trip to Azerbaijan.

Khamenei declared five days of mourning for the crash victims on Monday, in addition to naming Mokhber as acting president and Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani as acting foreign minister.

“Mokhber will manage the executive branch and is obliged to arrange with the heads of the legislative and judicial branches to elect a new president within a maximum of 50 days,” Khamenei said, citing the relevant provisions of Iran’s constitution.

Mokhber, 68, has held the post of first vice president since Raisi was “elected” to the presidency in 2021. Iranian “elections” are a farce in which the theocracy eliminates almost all of the nominees before any citizen has a chance to cast a ballot. Election turnout has been declining steadily over the past few years, as disgruntled Iranians see little reason to participate in the pre-decided sham.

Iranian state media hailed Mokhber as a “vastly experienced executive manager” who has “impressed all and sundry with his work.” The international opposition website Iran International, on the other hand, noted that Mokhber has “historically maintained a low profile,” and his executive career was “marked by ambitions overshadowed by inefficiency and opacity.”

Mokhber’s most important position before becoming first vice president was holding the presidency of EIKO (the “Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order”), also known as Setad. He was reportedly hand-picked for the position by Ayatollah Khamenei, the principal controller and financial beneficiary of the corporation.

Despite its theocratic name and its official billing as a “charitable trust,” EIKO is a business conglomerate, a pseudo-state organization with long tentacles that reach through the entire Iranian economy. Together with another bogus “charity” called Astan Quds Razavi (AQR), EIKO directly controls nearly half of the Iranian economy.

EIKO is one of the major instruments the theocrats employ to maintain control over Iranian life, and it pours vast sums of money into the coffers of the ayatollahs. It has also been recognized by the United States government as an instrument of oppression.

The U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions against EIKO in January 2021, noting that its vast portfolio includes “assets expropriated from political dissidents and religious minorities, to the benefit of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and senior Iranian government officials.”

Mokhber was one of the EIKO executives mentioned by name in the Treasury sanctions, for his role in what then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin described as a “corrupt system of ownership over large parts of Iran’s economy.”

“EIKO has systematically violated the rights of dissidents by confiscating land and property from opponents of the regime, including political opponents, religious minorities, and exiled Iranians,” the Treasury Department said.

Mokhber has held executive positions at several other dubious “charitable trusts” and financial institutions, including the Mostazafan Foundation, which doles out patronage jobs to Khamenei’s allies and loots money from persecuted religious minorities such as the Baha’i and Jews, and Sina Bank, which was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department and European Union for funding Iran’s nuclear missile program.

Mokhber enjoys the dubious distinction of having had a leading role in Iran’s failed effort to produce a Wuhan coronavirus vaccine during the pandemic. The vaccine, known as COVIran Barekat, was developed with funding from EIKO. Although Iranian scientists made ludicrous claims of 90 and even 100 percent effectiveness for their miracle vaccine, the project was an expensive flop, absorbing millions of dollars in funding but producing very few doses of medicine.

Mokhber was a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) medical corps during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, giving him medical credentials for his leadership of the farcical coronavirus vaccine project and bolstering his political reliability in Khamenei’s eyes, since the IRGC is controlled by the theocracy. Mokhber’s political resume also includes a stint as deputy governor of the southwestern Khuzestan province, where he was born.

In October 2022, Mokhber led a delegation of Iranian security officials to Moscow, where they reportedly arranged deliveries of Iranian-built missiles and drones to support Russia’s attack on Ukraine. During a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Mokhber also proposed tactics for evading American and European sanctions.