Mohammed Mokhber appointed Acting President of Iran
Vice President of Iran, Mohammad Mokhber, was on Monday and appointed as Acting President of the Islamic Republic following the death of President Ebrahim Raisi.
Raisi died in a helicopter crash that occurred in the country’s northwest on Sunday.
A few hours after the death was officially confirmed, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, announced Mokhber as the country’s Acting President.
Mokhber now has a maximum period of 50 days to hold elections, Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported.
Iran’s government cabinet also appointed on Monday Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani as acting foreign minister following the death of Hossein Amirabdollahian in the same helicopter crash.
Here are things you need to know about the new Acting President.
Mr Mokhber, who is around 68 years old, became the First Vice President of Iran in August 2021.
The new acting president is originally from Khuzestan Province in Iran’s southwest, bordering Iraq and the Persian Gulf.
He was a Deputy Governor and served as a member of the Revolutionary Guards medical corps during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
Mokhber previously worked in banking and telecommunications. He also worked at the Mostazafan Foundation, a significant conglomerate that manages the country’s mega-projects and businesses.
He had a bitter legal dispute with mobile phone service providers Turkcell and South Africa’s MTN over potentially entering the Iranian market.
The now late Raisi chose Mokhber as Vice President after he held senior positions in some of Iran’s most influential organizations, including the Mostazafan Foundation, Sina Bank and Setad.
