Under this system the person who occupies the highest...

Under this system the person who occupies the highest government post and formulates the general policies is the Supreme Leader. Next to him is the President. The chief justice heads the judiciary and the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly heads the legislature. They are recognized as the highest officials after the Supreme Leader and the President. Twenty years after the Revolution, the Constitution has undergone some amendments related to the structure of some branches of government.

In the beginning, the prime minister used to be the chief executive and form the cabinet subject for approval by the President and Islamic Consultative Assembly. After an amendment of the Constitution, premiership was omitted and the President became the chief executive. This structure has no precedence in Islam and Islam has no specific decree or program in this regard.

So, one cannot claim that Islam explicitly ordered people to vote and elect their president and also play their role in choosing the heads of other powers. Some people think that the reason behind what we have said is that Islam has not specified any form of government. So, we should acknowledge that Islam has delegated this affair to the people who have the right to choose the form of their government as well as their legal code.

Similarly, other affairs of the government are relegated to the people. Therefore, the contention that the government must be determined by God is in conflict with people’s political self-determination, and there is contradiction between what is being practiced and the claim that the government must be determined by God. Even the notion of “Islamic republic” is self-contradictory, because “republicanism” means that people take control of government and determine its form.

On the other hand, once we add the modifier “Islamic” to the “republic” and say that the wali al-faqih must head the government especially if we believe that wilayah al-faqih acquires legitimacy from God and the Imam of the Time (may Allah expedite his glorious advent), we regard the system as divine and not popular. That is, the legitimacy of this system is acquired from above.

Initially, God gives legitimacy to the government and then the Prophet ( s ) and the infallible Imams ( ‘a ) are designated and granted legitimacy by God and then the wali al-faqih by the living infallible Imam ( ‘a ) and the political organs under his authority are granted legitimacy.