Iranian Parliament in the context of Iranian government

The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran (Persian: نظام جمهوری اسلامی ایران, romanized: Nezâm-e Jomhuri-ye Eslâmi-ye Irân), known simply as Nezam (Persian: نظام, romanized: Nezâm, lit. 'the system'), is the national government of Iran.

Its constitution, adopted by a referendum, calls for separation of powers, with executive, legislative and judicial systems. The supreme leader of Iran is the country's head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

The Basij (Persian: بسيج, lit. 'Mobilization'), formally Sâzmân-e Basij-e Mostaz'afin (سازمان بسیج مستضعفین, 'Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed'), is a paramilitary volunteer militia within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and one of its five branches. An individual member is called basiji in the Persian language. As of July 2019, Gholamreza Soleimani is the commander of the Basij.

A paramilitary volunteer militia established in Iran in 1979 by order of Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the Iranian Revolution, the organization originally consisted of civilian volunteers, often from poor, tribal, rural backgrounds affected by Post-Revolution economical and geopolitical issues, who were urged by Khomeini to fight in the Iran–Iraq War. Khomeini would occasionally refer to Basij as "The Twenty Million Army", claiming that about 75% of the time's population are Basijis. He would elaborate saying, that a country with 20 million of its people as their army, will be undefeatable. Basij was an independent organization until 17 February 1981, when it was officially incorporated into the Revolutionary Guards organization structure by the Iranian Parliament in order to end the interservice rivalry between the two, according to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.