TEHRAN: Iran’s Supreme Leader led prayers in Tehran on Wednesday at the funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi as the clerical establishment hurried to organise the election of a successor, which could further erode its legitimacy amid growing public discontent.
The June 28 vote to replace Raisi, killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, will need to galvanise a population that showed little interest in the 2021 ballot that gave the hardline cleric the presidency, a role that oversees day-to-day government.
“The establishment lacks options to secure a high turnout in such a short period of time,” said a former Iranian official. Meanwhile, state TV showed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading prayers as tens of thousands of mourners thronged streets at the funeral in Tehran. Raisi was to be buried in his eastern home city of Mashhad on Thursday.
His coffin, as well as those of Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other officials who were killed in Sunday’s crash near the Azerbaijan border, were passed over the heads of weeping mourners. State media said over 40 foreign dignitaries including officials from India, Iraq, Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Kuwait, Russia, China, Armenia and Azerbaijan took part in a commemoration ceremony in Tehran on Wednesday.
India’s Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar met Iran’s acting President Mohammad Mokhber here and conveyed condolences. Dhankhar, who is leading the Indian delegation at the official funeral ceremony, paid tributes to Raisi, Amir-Abdollahian, and other Iranian officials who died in the crash.