According to the rules of the current political system, only countries with a presidential republican system will have a situation where the president enjoys the status of head of state and head of government at the same time, such as United States, the Philippines, Turkey, Brazil and other countries, and the president of such countries holds the highest executive power and the highest military command power, and is often the number one person in the country to which he belongs.
However, there is one country that is very special, the president of the country, like the United States, the Philippines, Turba and other countries, is also the head of state and the head of government, and is also the commander of the armed forces, but the status of the president is not the highest, and there are big people with higher status above the president who control the dominant power.
This country, which cannot even enjoy absolute dominance by the president, is Iran, the "leading big brother" of the Shiite sect of Islam.
In addition to the president as the head of state, Iran also has the supreme spiritual leader, who also enjoys the status of head of state in Iran, and the dual head of state system has become a major feature of Iran's politics.
On the surface, the president belongs to the secular attribute of the head of Iran, and the supreme spiritual leader belongs to the religious attribute of the head of Iran, and it is reasonable to say that they are the same head of state, regardless of whether they are divided into three, six, nine, etc., but in fact, the secular president of Iran must be subordinate to the religious leader.
We can see this from the following five facts.
First of all: the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has established the current system of administrative and religious unity, is dominated by religious rather than secular forces. In the late seventies of the last century, the Pahlavi dynasty of Iran vigorously promoted Westernization and secularization reforms, which was strongly opposed by the Islamic Shiites led by Khomeini, and called on Muslim supporters to overthrow the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty in Europe and Europe and carry out a "total Islamization" revolution in Iran, which is what we call the "Islamic Revolution of Iran in 1979".
In just one year, the last king of the Pahlavi dynasty Iran, Mohammed · Reza· Pahlavi was forced into exile under the national struggle, and Khomeini, who was remotely commanded in Paris in France, ended his exile on February 1, 1979 and returned to Iran as a victor, marking the victory of the Iran Islamic Revolution and the end of the Iran Pahlavi dynasty.
After gaining control of the country, Khomeini's forces began to suppress their former allies, preventing Iran from moving towards an Islamic republican regime, and instead leaning towards religious rule; Therefore, at the behest of Khomeini, Iran adopted a new constitution in November 1979, enshrined Khomeini as the supreme theocratic leader of Iran, with theocracy above all else, and established the post of president under the supreme leader, focusing on administrative functions, thus laying the foundation of Iran's theocratic system, and the regime is subordinated to the theocratic tradition.
Second: Anyone who wants to run for president of Iran must first be screened by the supreme spiritual leader. After the death of President Raisi, Iran held a new presidential election, and as many as 80 people registered to run, but only six actually qualified, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who ran three times in 2017, 2021 and 2024, and still did not make the cut.
Those who failed to pass the presidential election were vetoed by the Iran Constitutional Guardian Council, in other words, by the supreme spiritual leader, because of the 12 members of the Iran Constitutional Supervision Council, six were directly appointed by the Supreme Spiritual Leader, and the other six were jurists of senior religious scholars, and to some extent, all decisions made by the Iran Constitutional Supervision Council were carried out by the will of the Supreme Spiritual Leader.
Therefore, candidates including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former Speaker of Parliament Larijani, and former Vice President Jahangiri failed to pass the review of the 2024 presidential election, representing that Supreme Spiritual Leader Khamenei does not trust them at all, so they are naturally ineligible to run for president.
Again: the president is the head of state and government of Iran, but the power to appoint and remove is in the hands of the supreme spiritual leader. The most typical is the first president of the Islamic Republic of Iran Abu · Hassan· Bani Sadr, who was the assistant to the first supreme spiritual leader of the Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini during his exile, and when Khomeini returned from exile, he returned to China and served as Khomeini's chief economic adviser and participated in the drafting of the new constitution of Iran.
It can be said that Bani Sadr is Khomeini's important confidant, so much so that he had the opportunity to be elected as the first president of Iran in February 1980, but what Khomeini did not expect was that Bani Sadr did not support the principle of religious jurists governing the country, and opposed the participation of religious scholars in politics, which disappointed Khomeini and his supporters, who tend to rule the country by religion, in fact, President Bani Sadr has stood on the opposite side of Khomeini.
Bani Sadr's position was supported by the left-wing guerrilla group "People's Mujahideen", which was at odds with Khomeini's forces, and eventually Bani Sadr was removed from office after only one year as president by Supreme Spiritual Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, and was removed from his post as commander-in-chief of the Iranian armed forces, and had to go into exile again. Bani Sadr's fate exemplifies the consequences of confrontation with Iran's supreme spiritual leader.
The same is true for presidents who are elected to office, with the permission of the supreme spiritual leader. After the election results of the President of Iran are announced by the Election Commission, the first wave must be recognized by the Guardian Council of the Iran Constitution, and after confirming that they are correct, they will be submitted to the Supreme Spiritual Leader of Iran for the second wave of confirmation, and as long as the president-elect conforms to Islamic teachings, then the Supreme Spiritual Leader will issue a letter of appointment so that the President of Iran can be officially sworn in.
And finally: the supreme spiritual leader serves for life, but the president has term limits. Since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, only two supreme spiritual leaders, Ayatollah Khomeini and Khamenei, were born and Khomeini died of a heart attack in June 1989, when Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the third president of Iran, took over and has been in office until now.
In the 35 years that Khamenei has served as the supreme spiritual leader, Iran has produced six full-fledged presidents, which can really be described as the supreme spiritual leader of iron and the president of flowing water. As long as the supreme spiritual leader is alive, he can always hold office, but the term of office of the president of Iran, like the term of the president of United States, can only serve for four years, can be re-elected for one term, and must step down after the expiration of the term, which reflects the authority of the supreme spiritual leader is higher than that of the president of Iran.