Tehran announces election date after shock death of president

Iran has announced it will hold a presidential election on June 28 following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash over the weekend.

According to local media reports, the decision was published after a meeting between the heads of the republic’s judicial, executive and legislative authorities.

Vice President Mohammad Mokhber has taken on the role of Acting President of Iran following Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s approval on Monday. It is unclear whether Mokhber himself will run.

Candidate registration will take place from May 30 to June 3, followed by electoral campaigns scheduled to run from June 12 to 27. Individuals will reportedly be vetted by the Guardian Council, a 12-member body of clerics and jurists that administers elections. 

The president of Iran is usually elected every four years by a “direct vote of the people,” indicating that an election was due in or before June 2025.

The announcement comes two days after the fatal helicopter crash which killed the Iranian president. Raisi and several other senior officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, were killed when the helicopter they were traveling in went down in the mountainous East Azerbaijan province in northwest Iran. After more than ten hours of searching – hampered by fog and rain – the president and his entourage were found and confirmed dead.

The head of state was returning from the inauguration ceremony of a dam on the Iran-Azerbaijan border, having pledged to visit each of Iran’s 30 provinces at least once a year.

A representative of the republic’s conservative wing, Raisi was elected in 2021. Before assuming the presidency, he had worked his way up from Deputy Prosecutor in Tehran in the 1980s and 1990s to attorney general and, later, chief justice.

Five days of mourning have been declared for the victims of the crash.