Mali opposition concedes Toure's re-election

BAMAKO, May 20 (Reuters) Mali's main opposition group has dropped its complaints against President Amadou Toumani Toure's re-election last month and pledged to contest legislative polls in July.

The poor West African nation's Constitutional Court had rejected the opposition's accusations of fraud last week and confirmed Toure's landslide victory.

Toure won 71 per cent of votes at the April 29 polls to guarantee a second five-year term at the helm of the former French colony, one of the world's poorest nations.

Toure's nearest challenger, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita who obtained 19.15 per cent, told a political rally late yesterday that the opposition Front for Democracy and the Republic (FDR) coalition would stand by the court's ruling.

''The law is hard but it is the law and since the Constitutional Court of Mali has spoken, we will abide by its decision,'' Keita, president of the National Assembly and a former prime minister, told thousands of supporters.

''We will be there (at the legislative polls) because ... it concerns the future of our country,'' he said.

Foreign election observers and diplomats said that, apart from a few technical glitches, the presidential election in West Africa's second largest country was free, fair and credible.

Credited with rescuing Mali from military dictatorship, Toure first seized power in a 1991 coup and won international acclaim for handing over to an elected president the next year.

The soft-spoken former parachute commando, dubbed ''The Soldier of Democracy'', made a comeback as a civilian by winning an election in 2002.

Reuters ABM GC1801