Iran elects on national level a head of state and head of government (the president), a legislature (the Majlis), and an "Assembly of Experts" (which elects the Supreme Leader). Also City and Village Council elections are held every four years throughout the country. The president is elected for a four-year term by the people. The Parliament or Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis-e Shura-ye Eslami) has 290 members, elected for a four-year term in multi- and single-seat constituencies. Elections for the Assembly of Experts are held every six years. Mayors will be elected by popular vote for the first time in 2013. All candidates have to be approved by the Guardian Council. See Politics of Iran for more details.

Until January 2007, when it was raised to 18, the voting age was 15 years, the lowest globally at the time.

This election was seen as essentially a contest between conservative hardline factions as many of the reformist leaders were under house arrest in particular the two main opposition leaders. Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, who ran for president in 2009. The reformist parties boycotted the elections although independents and women candidates did run.

Coordinates: 32°N 53°E / 32°N 53°E / 32; 53

Iran (ⁱ/ɪˈrɑːn/ or /aɪˈræn/;Persian: ایران‎ [ʔiˈɾɒn] ( listen)), officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: جمهوری اسلامی ایران‎ Jomhuri-ye Eslāmi-ye Irān), is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran", which in Persian means "Land of the Aryans", has been in use natively since the Sassanian era. It came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia ( /ˈpɜrʒə/ or /ˈpɜrʃə/). Both "Persia" and "Iran" are used interchangeably in cultural contexts; however, "Iran" is the name used officially in political contexts.

The 18th-largest country in the world in terms of area at 1,648,195 km² (636,372 sq mi), Iran has a population of around 79 million. It is a country of particular geopolitical significance owing to its location in the Middle East and central Eurasia. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. As Iran is a littoral state of the Caspian Sea, which is an inland sea, Kazakhstan and Russia are also Iran's direct neighbors to the north. Iran is bordered on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by Iraq and on the northwest by Turkey. Tehran is the capital, the country's largest city and the political, cultural, commercial and industrial center of the nation. Iran is a regional power, and holds an important position in international energy security and world economy as a result of its large reserves of petroleum and natural gas. Iran has the second largest proven natural gas reserves in the world and the fourth largest proven petroleum reserves.

Gary G. Sick (born 1935) is an American academic and analyst of Middle East affairs, with special expertise on Iran, who served on the U.S. National Security Council < under Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan. He has authored two books on U.S.-Iran relations, in addition to a number of co-edited books and numerous articles and scholarly contributions. He blogs at http://www.tumblr.com/blog/garysick

Sick is a retired captain in the U.S. Navy. He received a B.A. from Kansas University in 1957, and later earned a Master of Science degree at George Washington University (1970), followed by a PhD in political science at Columbia University (1973).

Sick served on the staff of the National Security Council under President Carter, and was the principal White House aide for Persian Gulf affairs from 1976 to 1981, a period which included the Iranian revolution and the hostage crisis.

After leaving government service, Sick served as Deputy Director for International Affairs at the Ford Foundation from 1982 to 1987, and is the executive director of the Gulf/2000 Project at Columbia University (1993–present), which has published five books and numbers many of the leading scholars on the Persian Gulf among its global membership. He is an adjunct professor of International Affairs and a senior research scholar at Columbia's School of International & Public Affairs, where he has been voted one of the top professors. He is emeritus member of the board of directors of Human Rights Watch, and serves as founding chair of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch/Middle East.

Hassan Abbasi (born in 1967) is an Iranian political analyst doctrinologist & strategist, the head of the Center for Doctrinal Analysis, an independent political strategic think-tank in the Islamic Republic and also counter-terrorism advanced study center.

Abassi claims to be a basiji of the Iran-Iraq war, and special forces.[1] However, his involvement in Iran-Iraq war (and claims of his volunteer efforts to defend Iran in war times), has bean disputed by General Ali Shamkhani (the Commander of IRGC Navy during the war). General Shamkhani has said: "If Hassan Abbasi and the likes of him would have come to the battleground, we wouldn't have shortage of forces, and the matter [result of the war] would have been different. He was not in the battleground." [2]

Abbasi calls himself a doctor, with a Ph.D. degree, but has always refused to clarify the university from which he graduated or his adviser. He even claims that he has supervised some Ph.D. dissertations, but it has not been confirmed by an independent source. [3][4] Answering questions about his Ph.D. he has said that "Doctorate means Doctrine, meaning someone who can offer Doctrine." [5]

George Galloway (born 16 August 1954) is a British politician, author, journalist, and broadcaster, and the Respect Member of Parliament (MP) for Bradford West. He was previously an MP for the Labour Party, for Glasgow Hillhead and then its successor constituency Glasgow Kelvin from 1987 until 2005. He was expelled from the Labour Party in October 2003 because of his strident public opposition to the Iraq War. He subsequently became a founding member of the left-wing Respect Party, and was elected as the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow in 2005. In 2010, Galloway unsuccessfully contested the seat of Poplar and Limehouse, and in 2011 he unsuccessfully contested the Glasgow list for the Scottish Parliament, before being elected as an MP in the Bradford West by-election, 2012.

Galloway is well known for his campaigns in support of the Palestinians in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. In the late-1980s Hansard records him delivering a ferocious assault on the Ba'ath regime, and Galloway opposed Saddam's regime until the United States-led Gulf War in 1991. Galloway is known for a visit to Iraq where he met Saddam Hussein, and delivered a speech, which ended in English with the statement "Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability." He has always stated that he was addressing the Iraqi people in the speech. Galloway testified to the United States Senate in 2005 over alleged illicit payments from the United Nations' Oil for Food Programme.