The politics of Iran takes place in the framework of a unitary Islamic theocracy which was formed following the overthrow of Iran's millennia-long monarchy by the 1979 Revolution. Iran's system of government (nezam) was described by Juan José Linz in 2000 as combining "the ideological bent of totalitarianism with the limited pluralism of authoritarianism", although it "holds regular elections in which candidates who advocate different policies and incumbents are frequently defeated".Juan José Linz, Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes (Lynne Rienner, 2000), p. 36. . Iran was evaluated as an electoral autocracy for year 2024 by V-Dem Institute according to Regimes of the World classification.
The December 1979 constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, declares that Shia Islam is Iran's state religion (around 90–95% of Iranians associate themselves with the Shia branch of Islam), and it combines elements of theocracy (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) with a presidential system in a religious democracy. Iran directly elects the president, parliament (Majles) and the Assembly of Experts. All candidates who run for these positions must be vetted by the Guardian Council (which disqualifies the overwhelming majority of the candidates) for their loyalty to the Islamic Republic's system of government. Indirectly elected are the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Supreme Leader of Iran, and the Guardian Council, half of which is made up of Islamic jurists. In addition, there are representatives from appointed organizations, usually under the Supreme Leader's control, to "protect the state's Islamic character".IRAN: POLITICS, THE MILITARY AND GULF SECURITY by Darius Bazargan, v.1, n.3, September 1997 The Supreme Leader is the head of state, above the president.
History and background 1979 Revolution In 1979, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown by an Islamic Revolution in Iran, replacing its millennia-old monarchy with a theocratic republic. Shortly after, the leader of the Revolution, a senior Islamic jurist named Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, also transliterated Khumaynî, successfully supported referendums to declare Iran an Islamic Republic in March 1979, and to approve a constitution in December 1979, whereby "the Islamic government" would be "based upon wilayat al-faqih", (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) "as proposed by Imam Khumaynî", quoting the preamble of the constitution.
The constitution (which was drafted by an assembly made up primarily by disciples of Khomeini),Abrahamian, Khomeinism, 1993: pp. 33–36 calls for a Vali-ye faqih (Guardian Islamic Jurist), to serve as the Supreme Leader of Iran,Taking Stock of a Quarter Century of the Islamic Republic of Iran , Wilfried Buchta, Harvard Law School, June 2005, pp. 5–6Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, section 8 Article 109 states an essential qualification of "the Leader" is "scholarship, as required for performing the functions of mufti in different fields of fiqh" and for Islamic jurists to serve in other powerful institutions such as the Guardian Council and Assembly of Experts.
Establishment of guardianship of the jurist Guardianship of the Jurist is a concept in Twelver Shia Islamic law, which holds that, in the absence of the "Infallible Imam", who, according to Twelver beliefs, is the religious and political leader of Islam and will reappear sometime before Judgement Day, righteous Shi'i jurists (faqīh) should administer "some" of the "religious and social affairs" of the Shi'i community. In its "absolute" form—the form advanced by the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and the basis of government in Islamic Republic of Iran—the state and society are ruled by an Islamic jurist. Khomeini served as the Guardian Jurist Supreme Leader of Iran until his death in 1989. His successor, Ali Khamenei, ruled from 1989 until his assassination in 2026. He is succeeded by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei.
In a 1970 book on the subject circulated to his network of supporters, Khomeini argued that since Islamic sharia law contains everything needed to rule a state, whether ancient or modern,Khomeini, Islamic Government, 1981: pp. 137–38 any other basis of governance will lead to injustice and sin.Khomeini, Islamic Government, 1981: pp. 31–33 Thus Iran, the Muslim world and eventually the whole world, must be ruled according to sharia, and the person who should rule according to sharia, is an expert in that form of law.Abrahamian, Ervand, Khomeinism : Essays on the Islamic Republic by Ervand Abrahamian, pp. 34–35
These Guardians are deemed the true holders of both religious and political authority, who must be obeyed as "an expression of obedience to God",Islamic Government Islam and Revolution I, Writings and declarations of Imam Khomeini, 1981, p. 91 and whose rule has "precedence over all secondary ordinances in Islam such as prayer, fasting, and pilgrimage."Hamid Algar, `Development of the Concept of velayat-i faqih since the Islamic Revolution in Iran,` paper presented at London Conference on wilayat al-faqih, in June, 1988] [pp. 135–38]. Also Ressalat, Tehran, 7 January 1988, online]
Post-revolutionary political conditions
The early days of the revolutionary government were characterized by political tumult. In November 1979, the US embassy was seized and its occupants taken hostage and kept captive for 444 days, because of US support for the Shah (monarch) of Iran. The eight-year Iran–Iraq War killed hundreds of thousands and cost the country billions of dollars. By the early 1980s, power struggles ended in leftists and nationalists eliminated from all governmental institutions,Moin, Khomeini (2001), pp. 21–34Arjomand, Said Amir, The Turban for the Crown : The Islamic Revolution in Iran, Oxford University Press, c1988, p. 144Bakhash, Shaul, Reign of the Ayatollahs : Iran and the Islamic Revolution by Shaul, Bakhash, Basic Books, c1984 pp. 158–59 and the revolutionary leader Ayatollah Khomeini and his supporters firmly in control.
Iran's post-revolution challenges have included the imposition of economic sanctions and the suspension of diplomatic relations with Iran by the United States because of the hostage crisis, political support to Iraq and other acts of terrorism that the U.S. government and some others have accused Iran of sponsoring. Emigration from Iran has cost Iran millions of educated people, including entrepreneurs, professionals, technicians, and skilled craftspeople and their capital. Poverty rose by nearly 45% in absolute terms during the first 6 years of the Iran-Iraq War,Based on the government's own Planning and Budget Organization statistics, from: Jahangir Amuzegar, 'The Iranian Economy before and after the Revolution,' Middle East Journal 46, n.3 (summer 1992): 421) and according to the World Bank, by the time the war ended in 1988, per capita income was a little more than half of what it had been in 1976, shortly before the revolution."According to World Bank figures, which take 1974 as 100, per capita GDP went from a high of 115 in 1976 to a low of 60 in 1988, the year war with Iraq ended ..." (Keddie, Modern Iran, 2003, p. 274)Low reached in 1995, from: Mackey, Iranians, 1996, p. 366. During the 2026 Iran war and following the elimination Iran's leadership, the IRGC rose as the main power in the country. Based on reports Iran has transformed its leadership to a military junta.
Human rights Background The alleged tyranny and brutality towards all opposition of the monarchy was one of the propaganda themes of the Islamic revolution, but the Islamic Republic has not tolerated opposition to its system of government, since, as mentioned above, it believes disobedience to it is disobedience to God. In 1984, Iran's representative to the United Nations, Saʿid Rajaʾie-Khorassani, declared the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be representing a "secular understanding of the Judeo-Christian tradition", which did not "accord with the system of values recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran" and whose provisions the IRI would "not hesitate to violate".United Nations General Assembly. 39th Session. Third Committee. 65th meeting, held on 7 December 1984 at 3 pm New York. A/C.3/39/SR.65. quoted by Luiza Maria Gontowska, Human Rights Violations Under the Sharia'a, A Comparative Study of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran , May 2005, p. 4paraphrased speech, UN Doc. A/C.3/39/SR.65, para. 95. quoted in
In reply to international criticism of repression, Iranian officials loyal to the Supreme Leader deny wrongdoing, maintaining its human rights record is better than western countries who criticize its record. In 2004, Judiciary chief Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, denied that there were any political prisoners in Iran, saying "The world may consider certain cases, by their nature, political crimes, but because we do not have a law in this regard, these are considered ordinary offenses." In 2008, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replied to a question about human rights by stating that Iran has fewer prisoners than the US and "the human rights situation in Iran is relatively a good one, when compared ... with some European countries and the United States."
Whether the Islamic Republic goes well beyond what Sunni and many Shia Muslims consider Islamic exceptions to international human rights norms, is also an issue. Khomeini's January 1988 pronouncement "... that [Islamic] government is a branch of the Prophet's absolute Wilayat and one of the primary (first order) rules of Islam that has priority over all ordinances of the law even praying, fasting and Hajj…The Islamic State could prevent implementation of everything – devotional and non- devotional – that so long as it seems against Islam's interests",Sahife’ Noor (letters and lectures of Ayatollah Khomeini), Volume 20, p. 170. quoted in Keyhan, January 8, 1988; quoted in leads Ann Elizabeth Mayer to argue that this theory of velayat-e motlaqaye faqih ("the absolute authority of the jurist") "freed" the Islamic Republic "to do as it chose-even if this meant violating fundamental pillars of the religion ...", and that this doctrine, not sharia law, explained "the prevalence of torture and punishment of political dissent" in the Islamic Republic.
On the other hand, despite the vast popularity of Khomeini in Iran before and after the revolution, (approximately 10 million people are estimated to have participated in his funeral in a country of about 60 million), observers (Akbar Ganji, Arzoo Osanloo, Hooman Majd) have suggested there is no widespread support for violent crackdowns on dissent in contemporary Iran. "Notions of democracy and human rights" now have much deeper roots among Iranians than under the Shah,"The Latter-Day Sultan, Power and Politics in Iran" by Akbar Ganji, Foreign Affairs, November/December 2008 and in fact are "almost hegemonic" (Arzoo Osanloo),Sally E. Merry, New York University, writing about The Politics of Women's Rights in Iran by Arzoo Osanloo accessed 30-June-2009 so that it is much harder to spread fear among them, even to the point that if Iranian intelligence services "were to arrest anyone who speaks ill of the government in private, they simply couldn't build cells fast enough to hold their prisoners", according to journalist Hooman Majd.Majd, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, 2008, p. 183
Situation The Islamic Republic centralized and drastically expanded the prison system of the previous regime. In one early period (1981–1985) more than 7,900 people were executed.source: Anonymous "Prison and Imprisonment", Mojahed, 174–256 (20 October 19838 August 1985). Somewhere between 3,000 and 30,000 political prisoners were executed between July and early September 1988 on orders of the Ayatollah Khomeini, causing a 2020 UN Special Rapporteurs to send a letter to the regime describing the killings as "crimes against humanity".