UPDATE: Tehran tense after disputed election results ...

A glum Iranian supporter of reformist presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi rests his head on his arms, wearing a green T-shirt symbolizing his party's color
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI and ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writers

Anti-riot police guarded the offices overseeing Iran's disputed elections Saturday with the count pointing to a landslide victory by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while his opponent denounced the results as "treason" and threatened a challenge.

The standoff left Tehran in tense anticipation. Many people opened shops and carried out errands, but the backdrop was far from normal: black-clad police gathering around key government buildings and mobile phone text messaging blocked in an apparent attempt to stifle one of the main communication tools of the pro-reform movement of Mir Hossein Mousavi.

A statement from Mousavi posted on his Web site urged his supporters to resist a "governance of lie and dictatorship."

Outside the Interior Ministry, which directed Friday's voting, security forces set up a cordon. The results had flowed quickly after polls closed showing the hard-line president with a comfortable lead — defying expectations of a nail-biter showdown following a month of fierce campaigning and bringing immediate charges of vote rigging by Mousavi.

But an expected announcement on the full outcome was temporarily put on hold. A reason for the delay was not made public, but it suggested intervention by Iran's Islamic authorities seeking to put the brakes on a potentially volatile showdown.

Ahmadinejad had the apparent backing of the ruling theocracy, which holds near-total power and would have the ability to put the election results into a temporary limbo.

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