Congo election results in court

Brazzaville - An opposition presidential candidate on Friday asked Congo's constitutional court to throw out last weekend's vote that saw President Denis Sassou Nguesso re-elected in a landslide.

"I have just filed the appeal signed by Mr (Mathias) Dzon to ask for the cancellation" of the election, said Herve Ambroise Malonga, a lawyer for Dzon.

He said the complaint was based on allegations of ballot box stuffing, among other reasons.

Also on Friday, four candidates, including Dzon, held a news conference to denounce the vote results as being cooked up in the "laboratories of power".

Dzon, a 62-year-old former finance minister, had been seen as Sassou Nguesso's main rival but took a mere 2.3% of the votes.

He and five other candidates had called for a boycott of the election after allegations that the electoral list had been grossly overinflated.

Sassou Nguesso, who returned to power after civil war in 1997 and has run the Congo for a total of a quarter century, won Sunday's poll with 78.6% of the vote.

- SAPA