lts: Mahmud AHMADI-NEJAD elected president; percent of
vote - Mahmud AHMADI-NEJAD 62%, Ali Akbar Hashemi-RAFSANJANI 36%

Legislative branch:

unicameral Islamic Consultative Assembly or Majles-e-Shura-ye-Eslami
or Majles (290 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve
four-year terms)
elections: last held 14 March 2008 with a runoff held 25 April 2008
(next to be held in 2012)
election results: percent of vote - NA; seats by party -
conservatives/Islamists 170, reformers 46, independents 71,
religious minorities 3

Judicial branch:

The Supreme Court (Qeveh Qazaieh) and the four-member High Council
of the Judiciary have a single head and overlapping
responsibilities; together they supervise the enforcement of all
laws and establish judicial and legal policies; lower courts include
a special clerical court, a revolutionary court, and a special
administrative court

Political parties and leaders:

formal political parties are a relatively new phenomenon in Iran and
most conservatives still prefer to work through political pressure
groups rather than parties, and often political parties or
coalitions are formed prior to elections and disbanded soon
thereafter; a loose pro-reform coalition called the 2nd Khordad
Front, which includes political parties as well as less formal
groups and organizations, achieved considerable success at elections
to the sixth Majles in early 2000; groups in the coalition include:
Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), Executives of Construction
Party (Kargozaran), Solidarity Party, Islamic Labor Party, Mardom
Salari, Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization (MIRO), and
Militant Clerics Society (Ruhaniyun); the coalition participated in
the seventh Majles elections in early 2004; following his defeat in
the 2005 presidential elections, former MCS Secretary General and
sixth Majles Speaker Mehdi KARUBI formed the National Trust Party; a
new conservative group, Islamic Iran Developers Coalition
(Abadgaran), took a leading position in the new Majles after winning
a majority of the seats in February 2004; following the 2004 Majles
elections, traditional and hardline conservatives have attempted to
close ranks under the United Front of Principlists; the IIPF has
repeatedly complained that the overwhelming majority of its
candidates have been unfairly disqualified from the 2008 elections

Political pressure groups and leaders:

groups that generally support the Islam