LONDON -- "No stable system of government can be established unless it is popular." It would be an unremarkable statement in most parts of the world, but in Iran it is a subversive remark faxed by a man who has been under house arrest since 1997. The fact that he is Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, one of the founders of the Islamic Republic of Iran and once the designated heir to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, just makes it more dangerous.

There is a presidential election in Iran on Thursday, and if Montazeri were free there is no doubt that he would vote for the incumbent president, Mohammed Khatami, a fellow cleric who also disapproves of the stranglehold that conservative mullahs have gained over Iran. There is equally little doubt that Khatami will win, though maybe by a smaller landslide than in 1997, for he has made almost no progress in loosening that stranglehold.

Yet most Iranians will still vote for him. Iran's economy has been in decline ever since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah, and 40 percent of Iranians now live below the poverty line. Unemployment is officially 15 percent, but is far higher among the young. Khatami's supporters have been beaten, jailed, even murdered, and he has not dared to speak up for them. He has failed on almost every count -- and still they will vote for him again.