News that the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has instructed the Guardian Council — the legal body which is required by the Constitution to ratify the election result — to investigate charges of fraud has come as a surprise to many who took for granted the rhetoric of absolute power that emanates from the Leader’s office.

Few believed that the Supreme Leader, who had somewhat prematurely congratulated the President-elect on Saturday (the Constitution requires a three-day waiting period so that any complaints can be lodged) would shift his position so quickly.

Yet it is testament to the tremendous pressures on the political system that have resulted from the outpouring of anger across the country, and the widespread belief that the political order is experiencing a serious crisis of authority.

What is perhaps more remarkable is that the hardline leadership appeared to have no inkling, and certainly no concern, about the depth of feeling. So used had they become to getting their own way, they must have come to the conclusion that this occasion would be no different.

As Ayatollah Khamenei moved swiftly to confirm the vote in enthusiastic terms, President-elect Ahmadinejad dismissed the protests as nothing more than the discontent one might expect from disappointed football fans.

Such condescension only fuelled the anger that had erupted on Saturday. Indeed, it would appear that Mr Ahmadinejad’s comment that there had been no formal complaints about the election was pivotal in raising the stakes in the cycle of demonstrations which were gripping the country.

This dismissive gesture prompted one of the three defeated candidates, the influential former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, to publish a formal letter of complaint. What was important about this intervention was not only Mr Rezai’s conservative political leanings but that he made it quite clear that he felt he was several million votes short. In other words, his was not a procedural complaint but a substantive one.

On the ground, this would have emboldened a people who wondered desperately whether their leaders were about to compromise. It would seem that the recognition of popular outrage helped to convince the opposition leadership that something had to be done.

Behind the scenes there has been much frantic negotiation. Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Hassan Rohani, the former chief nuclear negotiator, have reportedly been in Qom, seeking an emergency sitting of the Assembly of Experts, the constitutional body with the task of supervising the activities of the Supreme Leader. It may be that the threat to enlist this body encouraged Mr Khamenei to shift his position and ask the Guardian Council to report on the allegations within ten days.

But is the Supreme Leader being genuine or simply playing for time? The consensus on the streets would suggest the latter. The answer was demonstrated by the tremendous crowds that gathered on the streets of Tehran on Monday. The crowds, estimated at several hundred thousand, were addressed by Mir Hossein Mousavi, in his first public outing since the election. A message from Mohammad Khatami, the former Reformist President, demanded that the election results be annulled and the contest held again.

The stakes are getting higher by the day. The opposition leadership is rebounding after the shock of the results and, if anything, the protests are likely to become more organised. It is unlikely, in this case, that time will be the healer some hope it to be.

Ali M. Ansari is director of the Institute for Iranian Studies, University of St Andrews.

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