The Iranian government is being kept in power by force and will not last its four-year term, one of the opposition presidential candidates has predicted.
Opposition member Mehdi Karoubi said the government faced pressure from members of parliament, the Iranian public and the rest of the world.
Speaking to the BBC in Tehran, he repeated allegations over the abuse of anti-government protesters in prison.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in disputed elections in June.
"From the first day the election result came out I was convinced that Mr Ahmadinejad would not survive the full four years of his term," Mr Karoubi said.
"Even within the last six months, the government has only been kept in power by force."
This comes 10 days after Iran was rocked by the the largest opposition protests in months, which, despite official condemnation, occurred at universities in almost all of Iran's major cities.
As Mehdi Karroubi said (from the BBC interview linked above)
"At the beginning of the movement, it was just a protest against the election, we didn't recognise it as a serious election.
"The government's response, the crackdown, has not calmed things down at all. In fact, it's just made the chanting louder. It's just increased the people's demands."
Mehdi Karroubi also "stood by his allegations that opposition activists have been raped in detention - a charge vehemently denied by authorities" (BBC). The rape and torture allegations have been widelyreported, though the government still continues to deny them. That a government would stoop to such sickening actions against its own citizens is astounding in this civilized age, but it shows the extent to which the power-hungry fanatics currently running Iran today will go to keep their sorry selves in power. Its a route tried by the Shah, by Pinochet, by Ceauescu, by Musharraff. In the end, they all shared the same fate.
Sometime in the next few short years, I believe Khameini and Ahmadinejad will know that fate as well.