The Republic of Congo's constitutional court yesterday confirmed the re-election of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, which had been disputed by opponents who alleged widespread fraud in the July 12 vote.

Government spokesman Alain Akouala Atipault said subsequently that Sassou Nguesso would be sworn in for a fresh seven-year term - his last, according to the oil-rich country's constitution - on August 14, the date his existing mandate expires.

Sassou Nguesso, 66, who returned to power after civil war in 1997 and has run the smaller of west-central Africa's two Congos for a total of a quarter century, won the poll with 78.61 per cent of the vote.

Since yesterday, he has been resting in the northern village of his birth, some 400 km from the capital Brazzaville. Five of his 12 opponents challenged the outcome of the July 12 election, alleging widespread fraud, but the court ruled that their claims were "without foundation" and "irrelevant".

"The candidate Denis Sassou Nguesso, having had 1,055,117 ballots, or 78.61 per cent of votes cast, was elected president of the republic in the first round," the court's president Gerard Bitsindou told a public hearing.

The five, one of whose complaints was deemed inadmissible on the grounds it was filed too late, were due to hold meetings in six cities around a country which stretches 1,000 km inland from the Atlantic coast south of the Gulf of Guinea before re-assessing their positions.

However, opposition spokesman Clement Mierassa said Interior Minister Raymond Mboulou had banned the gatherings, although the minister could not be contacted by AFP for confirmation.