Presidential runoff within 30 days

President Didier Ratsiraka and Marc Ravalomanana, mayor of the capital Antananarivo, will have to face each other at the polls again within 30 days after the High Constitutional Court (HCC) confirmed on Friday that neither won an outright majority in last month's presidential election.

UN Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative Adama Guindo told IRIN on Friday that the court rejected Ravalomanana's requests for official national electoral council tallies to be compared with those of the opposition.

Ravalomanana claimed he won about 52 percent of the vote in the 16 December poll, while provisional results showed he scooped 46.59 percent and Ratsiraka took 40.59 percent of the vote, making a runoff necessary. Four other candidates took part in the election.

"They (the HCC) announced results showing that Marc Ravalomanana won 46.21 percent of the vote, against 40.89 percent won by Ratsiraka," Guindo said. An AFP news report said the HCC had annulled results from 347 of the 6,200 polling stations - a total of 70,174 votes. The court had also cancelled a further 12,200 ballot papers and said that 36 polling stations had not functioned at all, the report said.

It added that the HCC had also rejected two motions tabled by Ravalomanana and had refused to disqualify Ratsiraka. The wealthy businessmen had accused the president - who has been in power almost constantly since 1975 - of violating the constitution and using public resources in his campaign.

Ravalomanana has rejected the ruling. "Ravalomanana, about 30 minutes after the results were announced in Mantasoa (about 50 km east of the capital), rejected these results, saying that they did not respect the peoples' choice. He has called on his supporters to continue with demonstrations," Guindo said. Ravalomanana told supporters he would address them again with a plan of action at a mass rally in the capital on Saturday.

While the United States and the United Nations have called for a speedy and peaceful end to the election stand-off, Ravalomanana has consistently said he would reject any results finalised without comparison between opposition and official tallies.