Ahmadinejad leads after 61 percent of vote in

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was ahead with 66 percent of the votes in Friday's election after 21 million ballots were counted, election commission figures showed.

Ahmadinejad's main challenger, moderate former prime minister Mirhossein Mousavi, had 31 percent, according to the commission, which is part of the Interior Ministry. It said 61 percent of all ballot boxes had now been counted.

The gap between the two had narrowed only slightly compared with the percentages given in earlier updates.

(Reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Hossein Jaseb; Writing by Fredrik Dahl, editing by Dominic Evans)