Ahmadinejad loyalists, including his sister, were due to pick up only two seats on the 15-member council, with a majority going to moderate conservatives loyal to current mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

The results, based on over 30 percent of the vote, come after a cleric seen as Ahmadinejad's spiritual mentor was trounced by centrist ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in elections for the powerful Assembly of Experts.

Rafsanjani, written off in some quarters as a spent force, polled over half-a-million votes more than the second-placed cleric and left Ahmadinejad's conservative ally Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi trailing in sixth.

The elections for municipal councils and the Assembly of Experts, held simultaneously last Friday, were the first major test for Ahmadinejad since he swept to power on a wave of popular support in June 2005.

Iran's archenemy the United States was quick to seize on the results, with State Department describing the outcome as "not the results that President Ahmadinejad would have hoped for."

"I think, despite the regime's efforts to cook the books in terms of an outcome, they seem to have been thwarted in that regard," said spokesman Sean McCormack.

Reformists, who were grumbling vociferously over the sluggish pace of publishing the Tehran city council results four days after the vote, were set to pick up four seats on the body, the partial results showed.

Such a performance would mark a minor breakthrough for the embattled movement after losing all its seats on the council in the 2003 local elections, a poll that started their fall from all of Iran's power centers.

"Reformists should thank people who did not stay away too long from politics," said the reformist daily Etemad Melli. "But they should be more thankful to Ahmadinejad and his government's policies, who gave them the most important opportunity by adopting wrong policies and persisting with its erroneous acts."

However, the biggest winners in Tehran, with eight seats, were set to be the moderate conservatives close to the technocrat mayor Qalibaf, a qualified commercial airline pilot and former police chief.

Another feature was the success of high-profile sportsmen, with seats set to go to reformist Olympic taekwondo champion Hadi Saei and two former world wrestling champions.

The election results capped a difficult few days for Ahmadinejad after Tehran students disrupted a presidential speech last week by burning his picture and shouting "death to the dictator."

With parliamentary elections in 2008 and presidential polls due a year later, the Tehran city council poll was seen as a key bellwether for future national votes.

Ahmadinejad himself won the presidency after rising to prominence as Tehran mayor.

In a televised speech to thousands of people in the western city of Kermanshah Tuesday morning, Ahmadinejad made no reference to the elections, instead concentrating on local issues and Iran's nuclear program.