Iran International
Iran’s fractious parliament is the crosshairs of increasingly strident criticism as factional infighting has precluded any concerted response to a deepening economic and ecological crisis.
Tehran media marked Parliament Day on Monday not with praise but with pointed attacks on lawmakers and the institution itself.
The centrist Ham Mihan called the Majles an example of “institutional backwardness,” arguing that the body has undergone “too many negative changes” compared even to the first post-revolutionary parliament.
Moderate outlet Khabar Online highlighted what it described as lawmakers’ exclusive perks, even as they fail to advance legislation that addresses worsening economic hardship as the rial plumbed new lows against the dollar this week.
The institution that Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, once branded “above all else” has seen its role steadily diminished—at times bypassed altogether, such as when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tasked the heads of the three branches with drafting the annual budget.
‘Indifferent to public’
Ham Mihan noted that today’s Majles bears little resemblance to the institution defined in the Constitution, accusing lawmakers of corruption and poor judgment for rather than alleviating public distress.
Former lawmaker Mahmoud Abbas Zadeh Meshkini told Khabar Online that MPs enjoy government-funded vehicles and special traffic lanes in Tehran, while many or their relatives sit on the boards of major companies.
He accused lawmakers of ignoring the plight of ordinary Iranians and argued that the Majles is no longer capable of overseeing government performance.
Another former lawmaker, Moineddin Saeedi, said legislators have grown indifferent to public concerns, consumed instead by factional disputes and personal gain.
Addressing the broader infighting, Saeedi said: “The people do not care about these matters and find the constant fight between reformists and conservatives laughable.”
Factional interests
The parliament has been the central platform for attacking Iran’s moderates in the past year, with the administration of Masoud Pezeshkian getting the most heat.
Lawmakers—led by Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who lost the 2024 presidential race to Pezeshkian—have repeatedly summoned ministers, launched probes and used floor debates to chip away at the government’s credibility.
Last week, the establishment daily, Ettela’at, criticized MPs for spending more time attacking the administration and prominent moderates—former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and former President Hassan Rouhani—than on substantive legislation.
Even the conservative Jomhouri Eslami weighed in against the legislature on Monday, blaming Iran’s Guardian Council for what it described as a biased vetting process that undermines genuine representation.
Many sitting MPs won their seats with under 5 percent of eligible votes in low-turnout elections in March and May 2024.
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.