TEHRAN — An eerie stillness has settled over this normally frenetic city.
In less anxious times, the streets are clogged with honking cars and cranky commuters. But on Saturday, drives that normally last 45 minutes took just a third of the time, and shops were mainly empty. Even Tehran’s beauty salons, normally hives of activity, had few customers; at one, bored workers fussed over one another’s hair.
People who did venture out said they were dispirited by the upheaval that has shaken this country over the two weeks since the contested presidential election, and worried they would get caught up in the brutal government crackdown of dissent that has followed.
Even in areas of the city not known for liberal politics, the sense of frustration, and despair, was palpable. Those who accuse the government of stealing the election said they had lost the hope for change they had during the protests that drew tens of thousands of people into Tehran’s streets. But others also confessed to feeling depressed.
One staunch supporter of the incumbent president, who the government says won in a landslide, said he was distressed by the street protests and the crackdown that, by official counts, claimed more than 20 lives.
“People have been hurt on both sides, and this is disappointing,” said the man, who sells light bulbs in Imam Khomeini Square. “We need to build our country, not engage in these kinds of clashes.”
By late last week, the country’s leaders had succeeded in quelling the massive demonstrations that challenged their legitimacy. But the widespread feeling of discontent — even among those who had no part in the protests — was likely to pose a lingering challenge to leaders’ attempts to move quickly past the vote and return life to normal.
There were further signs on Saturday that the opposition was running out of options in its attempts to nullify the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which has been confirmed by the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The Expediency Council, headed by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, issued a statement that called the supreme leader’s decision the final word on the election, although it did say the government should investigate voting complaints “properly and thoroughly.”
Mr. Rafsanjani has been one of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s strongest critics and one of the most ardent supporters of Mir Hussein Moussavi, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s chief rival in the election. But after the vote, the former president had been quiet, and many Iranians had hoped he would broker some compromise behind the scenes.
And although an opposition Web site carried a new message from Mr. Moussavi, the first in several days, he did not present any new plans for resistance. He instead reiterated demands for a new election, which the government has rejected.
At the same time, those in the opposition were increasingly fearful for the hundreds of government critics who have been jailed.
Amid rumors that the government was beginning to force confessions — a tactic leaders have used in the past to tarnish dissidents’ reputations — the IRNA news agency reported that a jailed journalist had said reformist politicians were to blame for the recent protests.
The journalist, Amir-Hossein Mahdavi, was the editor of a reformist newspaper close to Mr. Moussavi that was shut down before the election.
Mr. Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, responded Saturday to statements by President Obama, who made his most critical remarks of the Iranian leadership on Friday, when he called the government’s crackdown “outrageous” and said the prospects for a dialogue with Iran had been dampened.
Mr. Ahmadinejad suggested that Washington’s stance could imperil Mr. Obama’s aim of improving relations, according to the ISNA news agency.
“Didn’t he say that he was after change?” Mr. Ahmadinejad asked. “Why did he interfere?”
On Saturday, security forces were still on the streets, but uniformed guards had replaced the most feared forces, the Basij paramilitary members, who were involved in many of the beatings and shootings of demonstrators, and the hard-line Revolutionary Guards in their camouflage outfits.
The shops on Baharestan Square, which was the scene of the latest clashes on Wednesday, and on Haft-e Tir Square, where the paramilitary forces attacked people a day earlier, were open Saturday. But shopkeepers said business was limping.
“We used to sell nearly $2,000 a day,” said a woman at an Islamic coat shop on Haft-e Tir Square. “But since the election, our sales have dropped to $900 a day.” She gave only her first name, Mahtab, citing fear of retribution.
Like many others who spoke, Mahtab said she was depressed by what she had seen since the election. She said that she was not a political person and had not even voted June 12, but that the repression on the streets was “beyond belief.”
“I am disgusted, and wish I could leave this country,” she said.
She said she had seen a paramilitary officer outside the shop hit a middle-aged woman in the head so hard that blood streamed down the woman’s forehead.
When Mahtab and her colleagues tried to leave the shop to go home, she said, the forces began clubbing them while shouting the names of Shiite saints. “They do this under the name of religion,” she said. “Which religion allows this?”
Daily life has also been affected.
Although people are still going to work, some parents have been reluctant to take their children to day care, fearing that unrest on the streets would prevent them from picking up their children. University exams have been postponed and many families have traded parties for small get-togethers, where the election is a constant topic of conversation.
“People are depressed, and they feel they have been lied to, robbed of their rights and now are being insulted,” said Nassim, a 56-year-old hairdresser. “It is not just a lie; it’s a huge one. And it doesn’t end.”
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