"Outraged Iranian people will not retreat in the face of the clerical mafia ruling Iran," says Maryam Rajavi.

11:44, Mon, Mar 9, 2026 Updated: 11:45, Mon, Mar 9, 2026

Iran appoints Mojtaba Khamenei as its new supreme leader

Iran appoints Mojtaba Khamenei (second left) as its new supreme leader (Image: Getty)

Maryam Rajavi has launched a fierce attack on the reported installation of Mojtaba Khamenei as Iran’s new supreme leader, warning the move amounts to the country’s hardline clerical establishment turning itself into a mediaeval-style hereditary monarchy.

Rajavi, president of the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the regime had effectively crowned the son of the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in a desperate attempt to preserve its grip on power.

She said: “The absolute clerical rule, known as Velayat-e Faqih, has effectively turned itself into a hereditary monarchy by placing Mojtaba Khamenei on the throne,” adding that the move would not rescue what she called the “shipwrecked vessel of religious fascism.”

The 72-year-old, who hopes to be installed as a transition Iranian leader promising free and fair elections within six months, insisted the leadership shift would do nothing to restore legitimacy to Iran’s ruling system and likened it to the monarchy that was toppled during the Iranian Revolution, accusing the authorities of once again denying Iranians their sovereignty.

Rajavi, who has a Bill or Rights-style 10-point plan promising freedom of speech, gender equality and separation of religion and state, said Mojtaba Khamenei had for decades been a central figure in the regime’s machinery of repression. “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, claiming he had long operated as his father’s de facto successor behind the scenes.

She also accused the incoming leader of bearing responsibility for massacres, the crushing of popular uprisings and the tight grip over Iran’s economy and resources, alleging that national wealth had been systematically looted while ordinary citizens suffered worsening hardship.

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Rajavi said the regime’s policies had imposed what she described as the harshest oppression and exploitation on millions of Iranians, particularly women.

Despite the power shift, she warned the leadership that the Iranian public would not back down saying: “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,” adding that the country’s future would ultimately be decided by its citizens.