This morning, three days after US-Israeli navy strikes killed Supreme chief of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Polymarket merchants thought they’d discovered his substitute — after which misplaced greater than half of their place values by lunchtime.
Alireza Arafi, a little-known cleric, was the frontrunner amongst binary choices merchants on Polymarket at a 22% odds fee this morning. Nevertheless, he’d plummeted to 9% at time of writing.
With Khamenei useless and Iran’s theocratic management in disarray, its de facto interim management council, the Expediency Discernment Council, named Arafi on Sunday to hitch Masoud Pezeshkian and Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i in a three-person physique governing the nation underneath Article 111 of its structure.
Arafi can also be deputy chairman of the Meeting of Specialists, the 88-member clerical physique that usually selects the nation’s supreme chief. Earlier in the present day, Israel detonated munitions on the Meeting of Specialists constructing.
Lastly, Arafi is a member of the Guardian Council, which vets candidates for that very meeting.
In abstract, Arafi at the moment holds an interim management place alongside the nation’s two different highest-ranking males, helps determine who might run in rivalry, and sits on the physique that votes for candidates.
Typically, Polymarket merchants get it fallacious. Different instances, they merely learn an org chart.
The seminary loyalist sitting on Iran’s high committees
Native media has described Arafi as a “staunch loyalist to the core ideology of the Islamic Republic.” In actual fact, he previously headed one of many regime’s most prestigious non secular colleges, Al-Mustafa Worldwide College.
Born in 1959, Arafi has spent his total profession rising by means of Iran’s clerical paperwork. The late Khamenei personally appointed him to steer the nation’s seminaries in 2016 — a robust place within the theocratic state — after which promoted him to the Guardian Council in 2019.
Every successive accolade in his regime’s type of Islam makes Arafi a greater candidate to change into Ayatollah, the best title of Twelver Shia clergy and customary parlance for Iran’s supreme chief.
Nevertheless, his promotion is definitely not assured, therefore Polymarket’s betting line at a mere 22% this morning and simply 9% now.
When buying and selling offshore binary choices, payouts are by no means certain till funds clear a checking account.
When Donald Trump, for instance, referred to as Kevin Hassett a “potential Fed Chair” and “a respected person, that I can tell you,” merchants rushed to position trades at 70% on Polymarket and 74% on Kalshi.
These gamblers misplaced all of it when Trump as a substitute nominated Kevin Warsh.
No consensus about who will change into Iran’s supreme chief
Arafi’s opponents amongst Polymarket merchants inform a narrative of how little consensus exists about Iran’s management.
Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje’i, the judiciary chief and Arafi’s fellow council member, sits at 17%.
Hassan Khomeini, grandson of the revolution’s founder, was at 15% this morning however crashed to eight% by time of writing. Mojtaba Khamenei, the late Ayatollah’s son, trades at simply 7% however rose to 19% by time of writing.
An 13% guess that Polymarket abolishes its personal market fully, probably because of dying of candidates, rounds out the sector’s extra unique wagers.
This market was created on February 28 and resolves on December 31. Iran’s Meeting of Specialists is anticipated to call a successor inside days, though many months stay earlier than December 31.
