Iran regime’s parliament has become a marginal body overshadowed by unaccountable regime institutions that control vast wealth while evading all oversight.
The Iranian regime’s political system has long relied on a network of unelected institutions that operate beyond accountability. Recent discussions in Iranian media once again expose how these sprawling power centers control extraordinary resources while the parliament—constitutionally tasked with oversight—has been reduced to a symbolic institution with no real authority.
During a recent meeting with media managers, the regime’s president openly acknowledged the scale of the problem by criticizing the proliferation of institutions and foundations that “produce nothing” yet absorb massive public funds. In the 2025 budget, a wide range of regime-aligned bodies receive vast allocations despite offering no measurable economic or social benefit to the population. Behind the numbers lies an entrenched system where economic power is concentrated in the hands of a few entities operating outside public scrutiny.
The core of the issue is structural. Vast institutions—such as the Executive Headquarters of Imam’s Directive, the Khatam-al-Anbiya conglomerate, Astan Quds Razavi, and the Foundation of the Oppressed—control an estimated sixty percent of Iran’s national wealth while operating entirely beyond the reach of the government or parliament. Their budgets and financial activities remain opaque, shielded by their direct subordination to the office of the Supreme Leader. Even dramatic budget explosions, such as the thirty-eight-fold increase allocated to Khatam-al-Anbiya for 2025, cannot be questioned by the representatives in the regime’s parliament.
The parliament’s inability to conduct basic investigations into these institutional empires highlights how far removed it is from its constitutional duties. Attempts at inquiries have repeatedly failed or been quietly buried. No investigation into Astan Quds has ever materialized. A parliamentary effort in 2013 to examine the Foundation of the Oppressed, particularly its land seizures in northern Iran, never reached the floor. Oversight has effectively collapsed because the bodies holding the nation’s wealth answer to no public authority.
While unelected institutions accumulate unprecedented power, the parliament itself has drifted into irrelevance. Instead of addressing economic hardship, collapsing public services, or systemic corruption, lawmakers occupy themselves with factional drama and symbolic debates that offer nothing to a population grappling with poverty and inflation. An analysis published in Jahan-e Sanat underscores this disconnect, describing a parliament absorbed in ideological showmanship while the public has long moved beyond its outdated political factions.
Former lawmaker Kamaleddin Pirmoazen points to a deeper structural crisis: years of rigid vetting through the Guardian Council have produced a parliament devoid of professional competence. Representatives lacking expertise and authority cannot legislate meaningfully and cannot challenge the regime institutions that drain the country’s wealth. His revelation that lawmakers received unfiltered internet access—hidden from the public for more than a year—symbolizes how little transparency exists even inside the parliament itself.
These dynamics underscore a fundamental truth: Iran regime’s parliament no longer functions as a representative body. It has neither the independence nor the institutional power to supervise the regime’s economic empire. The result is a governance system dominated by unelected entities that operate without transparency while elected bodies are sidelined into irrelevance.
A genuinely functioning political system requires public disclosure of budgets, performance reports, and financial outcomes for all regime-controlled institutions. It also requires independent oversight mechanisms capable of investigating the organizations that hold the nation’s wealth. Without these changes, the parliament will remain a stage for political theatrics while real power continues to reside in opaque networks beyond the reach of the people.
