PierzStyx

Originally Posted by Fink

So i was doing research on Iran's political system and found out some intriguing things we dont hear about quite often,

Iran's political makeup can best be described as a mixture of European,American,and Islamic political theory. The major branches of Govt are executive,legislative,Judicial,Office of Supreme leader, and Assembly of experts. Members of these branches are almost always voted in either directly or indirectly as with the Supreme Leader. That does not mean anyone can run for office, essentially they have to be vetted and shown to be loyal to the Islamic republic's political structure. In Parliament, the Conservative establishment holds about 190 out of 290 seats. Reformists, independents ,christians,jews, and Zorostarians hold the remaining seats. so a Ratio of about 66%:33%. We all remember the uproar in 2009 over Ahmedinajad's win in the elections and the protests that soon followed, Ahmedinajad was in the conservative camp and his opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi , was an independent reformist.

Its important to note that while there is a large reformist presence in Iranian politics, they still have to be 'loyal' to the country's political system (Islamic Republic headed by a supreme leader who is voted into office indirectly by the assembly of experts). Now the Supreme leader has final say in all govt decisions, but their interference is generally reserved only in cases of national importance (Like Nuclear policy, declaring War/Peace, and general Foreign Policy). All other decisions are headed by the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches much like here.

One thing that struck me as being odd was that The supreme leader's brother, Hadi Khamenei is a leading figure in the reformist camp. This reformist movement consists of big personalities, like Iran's former president Khattami, and hussien mousavi, Ahmedinajad's opponent and former prime minister under the now supreme leader. These divisions in political theory date back to Khomeini himself. The 2009 elections were probably the biggest challenge to the conservative establishment since the revolution in 1979. The reformists described the 2009 election as rigged and called for it to be canceled, warning that "if this process becomes the norm, the republican aspect of the regime will be damaged and people will lose confidence in the system." Other clerics called the election as the 'end of the Islamic Republic' -Though western polls did show Ahmedinajad leading by a 2:1 margin prior to the election.

Now heres where it gets really intresting. Before Khomeini died he designated a man called 'Montazeri' as his successor , widely viewed as ''as the most knowledgeable senior Islamic scholar in Iran'' , advocate of Islamic democracy, women's rights, Bahai rights, and civil rights. This man was hand in hand with Khomieni in the revolution, until he began to speak about the ills that were taking place during the transition from the rule of the Shah. He became to view Iran as not being a true islamic state, largely because of the early executions and purges led by the new rulers of Iran. Because of this he was stripped by khomeini of the title of next supreme leader and later saw a series of imprisonments and house arrests as he continued criticizing the Islamic republic. You can read more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_A...-Ali_Montazeri

This man died in 2009 at the age of 87, his funeral consisted of hundreds of thousands of people.

Here he is speaking some english:



Below is a short documentary about him , I havent seen it so I cant speak for how accurate the content is: