Waving flags and parading in support of their new head of state, people across Iran pledged their allegiance to new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on Monday. But amid the public ceremonies being held in city squares, there is a quiet undercurrent of fear and unease among many Iranians.
The elevation of Mojtaba — the second son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — suggests that certain factions in the Iranian government, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), are determined to double down on his father’s legacy and policies of repression.
“I think people don’t realize that these people, this government could be more bloodthirsty, more coldblooded,” one man in Tehran told CNN. “Honestly, I think people underestimated this whole thing. Things have been bad here, [Ali] Khamenei was terrible, but we had gotten some freedoms.”
“It’s scary. He is very vengeful right now,” another man in the Iranian capital said of the new supreme leader.
Multiple other Khamenei family members were killed in the first wave of US-Israeli strikes as well, according to Iranian state media, which reported the deaths of Mojtaba’s wife, mother, sister and brother-in-law.
Another woman in Tehran put it more starkly: “This guy, even if at one point maybe he would have been fine, now has a grudge to bear. They killed his entire family. He’s going to be out for blood.”
Everyone in Iran who spoke to CNN did so remotely and asked for their name to not be published, for fear of retribution.
Even some of those more favorable to the regime expressed uncertainty about the relatively unknown new leader.
“Overall, it seems to be a positive development… I hope that once the war ends, good programs and policies can be proposed afterward,” one man in Tehran said. “One of the main uncertainties, however, is that almost no one is familiar with his precise political positions.”