Here Are the Most Likely Candidates to Replace Iran’s Ailing Supreme Leader

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There are a few plausible candidates, but none of them represents a major rupture with the current revolutionary clerical regime.

“It is difficult to prophesy the outcome of Iran’s current power struggle,” analyst Ali Alfoneh wrote in a policy brief for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “But given the likely candidates to lead the country, one scenario may be safely ruled out: that Khamenei’s eventual demise will usher in a moderate Islamic Republic at peace with the world.”

With that in mind, here are the most likely successors to Khamenei's rule.
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Yazdi, 84, is nearly a decade older than the 75-year-old Khamenei. According to Reuters, Yazdi served as the head of the judiciary throughout the majority of the 1990s. He is now back in the country's political spotlight after a surprise decision by the Assembly of Experts to elect him to the head of the body.

According to scholar Ali Alfoneh in a policy brief for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Yazdi is a hardline ayatollah. If elected, he would likely continue the conservative policies of Khamenei, with harsh religious rule inside Iran alongside an aggressive sectarian foreign policy. Yazdi would also likely continue the state's patronage and expansion of the IRGC.
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Rafsanjani is currently the head of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council, which largely acts as an advisory body for the Supreme Leader — although he also lost to Yazdi in the election to lead the Assembly of Experts. Haaretz notes that Rafsanjani tends towards a slightly reformist position, while according to Alfoneh he lost sway in the upper echelons of Iran's government because of his possible sympathies towards Iran's Green Movement in 2009.
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Not to be confused with Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, Haaretz also projects Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi as a candidate as the next Supreme Leader. Mesbah Yazdi, 81, is a hardline cleric who is considered a radical conservative. His extreme positions often alienate both reformers and more pragmatic conservatives.

Alfoneh told Business Insider that Mesbah Yazdi “has no chance of running for Leader.”
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Mojtaba Khamenei, 45, is the second son of the current Supreme Leader. Although Khamenei is not a likely candidate due to his young age and lack of experience, he possesses many political contacts that could serve his appointment, Haaretz reports. Khamenei has especially close connections to the IRGC and he reportedly is involved in a number of the Guard's business dealings.

However, Alfoneh told Business Insider that “the story of Ali Khamenei grooming his son for succeeding him has no basis in reality.”
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During the Green Movement which erupted in response to allegedly fraudulent Iranian presidential elections in 2009, Rafsanjani reportedly pushed for replacing the office of Supreme Leader with a “leadership council,” according to Alfoneh.

This idea would have installed a group of at least three ayatollahs in a position of ultimate national authority in an attempt to prevent one individual from amassing total control.
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“The most radical scenario is abolishing the institution and direct IRGC seizure of power which I don't think will happen,” Alfoneh told BI. “The IRGC is more likely to support Mohammad Yazdi, Shahroudi, or Larijani in order to avoid Rafsanjani or Hassan Khomeini.”
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