TEHRAN — The prediction markets have spoken with unusual clarity: one candidate commands a two-thirds majority of market confidence in the race to succeed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. According to Kalshi, with nearly $114,000 in daily trading volume lending the figures genuine weight, the market consensus points toward a consolidation of clerical power along familiar and well-fortified lines before the year 2045.

The stakes could scarcely be higher. Iran's Supreme Leader commands the armed forces, controls the judiciary, and holds final authority over a nation of 90 million souls astride the Persian Gulf — a position that shapes oil markets, regional alliances, and the perennial question of Tehran's nuclear ambitions. The Assembly of Experts, an 88-member clerical body, holds the formal power of selection, though that body itself answers to the very office it is charged with filling — a riddle the markets, apparently, believe they have solved.

Yet 34% of market probability remains unaccounted for, a reminder that revolutions, reformers, and the sheer unpredictability of Iranian internal politics have confounded confident observers before.