Despite all the bad-mouthing Iran gets from the West, the Islamic Republic is more democratic than most other nations in the Middle East — that’s why millions of Iranians are on the streets demanding that their votes be counted. Ayatullah Khomeini’s 1979 Islamic revolution produced a hybrid political system combining the principle of giving the clergy ultimate executive authority with holding democratic elections — albeit from lists of candidates restricted by the clerics to those deemed loyal to the principles of the revolution — for parliament and the presidency. The result was a regime comprising competing factions and personalities, with its own version of checks and balances by distributing power across a variety of different institutions, from structures of government to unelected councils of clerics. Even the Supreme Leader, who holds ultimate executive power, is appointed by a clerical body — the 86-member Assembly of Experts — which also has the power to remove him.

The conflict in Iran thus far has been not so much a wholesale revolt of the masses against the system, as it is a complex struggle for power within Iran’s ruling establishment, and a battle over the country’s direction. Here’s a Who’s Who of the players that may determine Iran’s future in the unfolding drama.