(Writes through with details, context) By Diadie Ba DAKAR, March 11 (Reuters) - Senegal's top court confirmed President Abdoulaye Wade's landslide re-election to five more years in office on Sunday, throwing out an appeal by the main opposition over alleged irregularities in last month's poll. Wade, an 80-year-old veteran campaigner known as "The Hare" for his political cunning, saw off more than a dozen challengers in the Feb. 25 election with no need for a second round. "Candidate Abdoulaye Wade is first with 1,914,403 votes, representing 55.9 percent of valid votes," said Ndeye Magatte Mbengue, chief clerk of the Constitutional Court, confirming a provisional tally announced by electoral authorities. Several losing candidates alleged a range of irregularities but only the main opposition Socialist Party and the minor Democratic League, lodged formal appeals with the Constitutional Court. Both were rejected. "I can only express my disappointment, because the arguments we had were unanswerable," Socialist Party spokeswoman Aissata Tall Sall said after the ruling. Wade, an economic liberal and head of the Senegalese Democratic Party, won nearly four times as much as his nearest rival Idrissa Seck, his estranged former prime minister, with 14.92 percent. Socialist Ousmane Tanor Dieng came third with 13.56 percent. Wade's victory in elections in 2000 ended four decades of uninterrupted rule by the Socialist Party since independence from France in 1960 and enhanced Senegal's image as a bastion of democracy in a region beset by coups and civil wars. The presidential term has since been reduced to five years from seven, with a maximum of two terms meaning Wade must stand down in 2012 at the latest. CRITICISM But commentators say the election campaign, including rare, isolated outbursts of political violence in the capital Dakar, has exposed cracks in the country's democratic fabric. West African observers judged the poll "sufficiently free and fair" but a press freedom watchdog criticised the overwhelming coverage given to the incumbent by state media. The Socialist Party appeal said in 31 of Senegal's 34 administrative departments, envelopes had been sent for counting without the seal of the National Vote Counting Commission, thereby contravening electoral law. "When in an election across 34 departments there are 31 which do not conform ... to what the law says, you can only expect the election to be annulled," Socialist spokeswoman Tall Sall said. Wade has campaigned on an ambitious infrastructure programme to build highways, five-star hotels, railways and airports and create jobs for the thousands of young people seeking to join an exodus to Europe in hope of work and a better life, many risking their lives on fishing boats bound for Spain's Canary Islands. Critics say Wade, an economist who has sought a high profile on the African and international stage, has failed to tackle underlying poverty among Senegal's 12 million people, half of them under 18 years old and mostly living by farming or fishing.
