TEHRAN (Reuters) – A defeated candidate in Iran’s disputed election has said the Islamic system may face “collapse” unless it embraces change, in unusually blunt language from a prominent establishment figure.Conservative Mohsen Rezaie, a former Revolutionary Guards commander who finished third in the June 12 vote won by hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, called for national unity in a statement posted on his website on Sunday evening.”Continuation of the current situation would lead us to collapse from inside,” he wrote. “We need cooperation and brotherhood. We need to respect people and their rights.”The presidential election sparked days of street protests by supporters of moderate candidate Mirhossein Mousavi, who says the vote was rigged in Ahmadinejad’s favor, and exposed deepening divisions within the Islamic Republic’s leadership.Mousavi has said the next government of Ahmadinejad would be illegitimate. The authorities reject opposition charges of vote fraud and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has upheld Ahmadinejad’s re-election for another four-year term.
