Iran names Mojtaba Khamenei, son of late ruler, new supreme leader as oil prices soar

Maryam Rajavi, president of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, blasted the move to install Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader, calling it an attempt to turn the country’s clerical system into a hereditary monarchy.

“Tonight, the absolute clerical rule (Velayat-e Faqih) has effectively turned itself into a hereditary monarchy by placing Mojtaba Khamenei on the throne,” Rajavi wrote. “But it cannot save the shipwrecked vessel of religious fascism.”

Rajavi argued that the leadership change will not restore legitimacy to Iran’s ruling system, comparing it to the monarchy overthrown in 1979 and accusing the regime of once again denying the Iranian people their sovereignty.

“For more than three decades, Mojtaba Khamenei, alongside his father, has been among the principal architects of repression, the export of fundamentalism and terrorism, and the plundering of the Iranian people’s wealth,” she said. “In practice, he has long functioned as his father’s de facto successor.”

Rajavi said the new leader bears responsibility for massacres and the suppression of popular uprisings, as well as controlling Iran’s resources and economy and the systematic looting of national wealth. The latter, Rajavi said, resulted in the regime imposing the harshest oppression and exploitation on the majority of Iranians, especially women.

“Outraged Iranian people, who have risen up in successive uprisings to overthrow this regime, will not retreat in the face of the clerical mafia ruling Iran,” Rajavi wrote. “The destiny of Iran will be written by its people.”