President Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian of Iran have died in a helicopter crash. I’m sure this is mere coincidence of course
To be fair, the weather was incredibly bad and the helicopter wasn’t in great condition but damn. The timing
He was custodian at quds razavi. Which is the largest and oldest corporation in iran. It originally started as a shrine in the middle of nowhere about 12 centuries ago. If you search it you will find several dates for its founding because every other king gave them money in a new trust, but the organization is very old. Back then the big city in that general area was tus. Because the monks being the only ones able to provide protection and arbitrage, the city of mashad grew atound it. The monks got into all sorts of buissneses first catering to pilgrim hostels, grain trade, real state, and so on. Now their subsiduaries even make space ship fuel and parts.
But its ultimatley a charitable institution. It manages libraries, a university, provides comunity services, healthcare, etc.
So on the one hand he ran whats esentialy a zeibatsu, but on the other it is a corporation that has deep ties to its comunity and cares about its walfare. So his support should be from astan quds razavi, and so should his intersts. In that sense he is anti goverment; the main contradiction in iran rigth now is between the buding pmc class that wants a modern state, and various powers who like the autonomy they have, such as militias, boyads, bazaris, etc. Who are often able to act outside the executive. Interestingly Raisi was disliked by some iranian elites because he was of humble origines and not blood related to the board of trustees at razavi, they saw him getting the custodian job as him eating intruding in their turf.
Then he went to be the head of the judiciary. Was suposedly an anti corrupion guy, with mixed succes.
As president the most notable was some reform to the subsidy system, before some esentials like fuel and bread were subsidized by the state, wich resulted in smugling, so he liberalized the prizes and instead gave poor people a sort of ubi, to compenste.
Iran has one of the weakest executives in the world and he probably had more power as custodian than as president.
Overall not a bad guy, but not outstanding either.
wow i had no idea the old medieval charities would still be a thing in Iran, though ‘islamic republic’ might have been a clue lol