In 2006, Rafsanjani was implicated by Argentinian investigators in one of the deadliest instances of Iranian terrorism overseas – a 1994 suicide truck bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people were killed.
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The death of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Iran’s voices political realism and moderation, his name is associated with the Republic and the revolution against the Shah.
He held senior positions such as parliamentary speaker, commander of the war with Iraq, president for eight years, a member of the Experts Assembly (which designates Iran’s next supreme leader) and head of the Expediency Council (which devises the country’s wider policies).
President Ilham Aliyev also offered condolences to President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani.
Over time, however, Rafsanjani’s political influence fell sharply.
As Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace told Buzzfeed News, Rafsanjani, along with Khamenei, was one of the “two pillars of the revolution” in Iran: “The division of labor was that Khamenei was the ideological pillar and Rafsanjani was the pragmatic pillar”.
Rafsanjani’s loss likely will be a greater factor whenever it becomes time to select Iran’s next supreme leader. Political analysts fear Rouhani will have to seek support on the more radical fringes of Iranian politics to be reconfirmed as president in the May elections.
The former president publicly clashed with Ayatollah Khamenei, taking to Twitter in March to assail the current Iranian leadership.
Professor Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, also said his death could not have come at a worse time, as United States President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office.
Ayatollah Rafsanjani was a towering figure in Iran’s recent history.
With Rafsanjani gone, it’s unclear who will serve as a counterweight in the selection process to hard-liners, including those in the Revolutionary Guard, a powerful paramilitary organization with vast financial interests.
State television on Monday looped old interviews by Rafsanjani and Khamenei, emphasising the lasting bond between two stalwarts of the 1979 revolution.
In 2009 presidential election, Hashemi and his family stood with the people who opposed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency and argued that the elections were rigged.
Afrasiai said “this big loss for Iran can only be filled by his own legacy”, which he described as “the shining example of a true statesman who exhibited wisdom, patience, moderation and tremendous ability in the conduct of the nation’s domestic and global affairs”.
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But users of Arabic social media were less forgiving than their governments, due to Iran’s deep involvement in political and military conflicts across the Arab world since 2011, not least in Syria where Tehran is accused of amplifying the sectarian dimension of the civil war.
