Human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other government officials have compared Iran's human rights record favorably to other countries, particularly countries that have criticized Iran's record. In a 2008 speech, he replied to a question about human rights by stating that Iran has fewer prisoners than the US and "the human rights situation in Iran is relatively a good one, when compared ... with some European countries and the United States."
List of Iranian presidential elections
As such, the current long-time Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has been ruling for nearly three decades, has been issuing decrees and making the final decisions on economy, environment, foreign policy, national planning such as population growth, and everything else in Iran. Khamenei also makes the final decisions on the amount of transparency in elections in Iran, and has fired and reinstated Presidential cabinet appointments.