Ivory Coast's constitutional council declared incumbent Laurent Gbagbo winner of a presidential poll today, overturning provisional results that showed rival Alassane Ouattara as the victor, a council spokesman said.
The spokesman said a review of the results showed numerous irregularities and that the revised tally gave Mr Gbagbo 51 per cent of the vote against 49 per cent for Mr Ouattara.
Ouattara's camp had vowed earlier in the day to reject any legal move to overturn the provisional result and had warned of a possible return to civil war.
Ivory Coast is the world's largest grower of cocoa and the election was meant to reunite it after a 2002-03 civil war that split it in two and slashed investment flows.
Mr Gbagbo's allies have said the provisional results from the Nov. 28 run-off election was marred by mass vote-rigging in the rebel-held north.
After many delays, the election commission said yesterday that former IMF official Mr Ouattara had won the November 28th run-off with 54.1 per cent of the vote compared with 45.9 per cent for Mr Gbagbo.
Reuters