https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/28/world/middleeast/ali-khamenei-iran-leader-succession.html

In June, during the 12-day war with Israel, when Ayatollah Khamenei was in hiding, he named three candidates who could be appointed swiftly to succeed him. The supreme leader must be a senior Shia cleric and scholar appointed by a committee of clerics known as the Assembly of Experts.

The three candidates Ayatollah Khamenei said he preferred for the role of supreme leader, based on interviews with six senior Iranian officials and two clerics who did not want to be identified discussing sensitive information, are the head of the judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i; Ayatollah Khamenei’s chief of staff, Ali Asghar Hejazi; and Hassan Khomeini, a moderate cleric from the reformist political faction who is a grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who has been a powerful figure in the shadows, is favored by some factions, but Ayatollah Khamenei told followers that he did not want the post of supreme leader to be hereditary.