Exclusive: Iran’s Exiled Prince Says Future Monarch Should be Elected, Suggests Role is Not for Him

WASHINGTON - The son of Iran’s last monarch, exiled opposition figure Reza Pahlavi, has for the first time called on Iranians to consider creating an elected monarch position as part of any system that replaces the Islamic republic, while downplaying the prospect that he would serve in such a role.    

Iran’s largely exiled opposition groups have long been divided on the country’s future. Pahlavi supporters want him to head a revived Iranian monarchy while other activists want a new republic to replace the authoritarian Islamist one led by Shiite clerics who ousted the crown prince’s father in a 1979 revolution.    Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can download this video to view it offline. Those clerics have shown no sign of wanting to give up power and have violently suppressed internal dissent for decades. In November 2019, more than 300 people were killed during nationwide anti-government street protests, according to Amnesty International.  In a sign that Pahlavi may have helped Iran’s rival monarchist and republican movements to ease their divisions as they campaign for change in their homeland, members of both camps welcomed the crown prince’s comments about Iran’s future system of government, made in a VOA Persian TV interview aired on Friday. But they said the remarks also raise new questions about how his proposed elected monarchy would differ from a republican system and what kind of role Pahlavi would play in a post-Islamist-ruled nation.