Speaking Wednesday at the Qom’s Administrative Council, 150 kilometres south of Tehran, Ayatollah Amini said one has to do something urgent about correcting the situation and the officials must not think that whatever the people say is "nonsense".

"The people are very dissatisfied, and they are right to be so, and I swear to God that the society is on the brink of explosion", Ayatollah Amini said, adding that "If this discontent increases, as is the case, society and the regime will be threatened".

"No regime "can maintain itself in power by force", he warned the clerical rulers, most of them conservatives.

Criticising the action of the clerical rulers, Mr. Amini said what the officials are doing now is very different from what they had promised the people at the beginning and before the revolution.

Some analysts said Ayatollah Amini’s surprising warning concerns the deviation of the regime from the real Islam. However, they agreed that this is the first time that such a high-ranking, influential cleric acknowledges the shortcomings of the ruling system and increasing dissatisfaction of the people faced with generalised corruption, unemployment, hardship and the lack of basic freedoms.

"Under the former regime, no one was preventing people from going to the mosque or praying, but we had promised the real Islamic justice and an administration like of the time of the prophet and imam Ali. That was the reason the people listened, offered martyrs and made the revolution", Ayatollah Amini noted.

He said the survival of the regime depends on the actions of those at various levels of power and they should listen to the people’s demands for a better life, free of corruption, bureaucracy and nepotism.

"The duty of the rulers is not fasting or preying all the time, but to listen to the people, to fulfil their demands, offer them better life, prosperity and work", he added.

The embattled and powerless Khatami had menaced last week he might resign if the government deviated from promised reforms.

"Our society is on the threshold of disorder", he told a meeting of teachers in Tehran, adding that people had "not vote for me but voted for justice and freedom in the framework of the constitution".

Mr. Sa’id Hajjarian, an influent pro-reform politician considered as the "architect" of Mr. Khatami’s victory in the 1997 presidential elections as well as some lawmakers had said that the President was serious when he warned about resigning.

"If the people despair from Khatami, they would not go towards the conservatives, rather, would bypass Khatami", said Mr. Hajjarian, who escaped an assassination attempt on his life two years ago.