Mauritania's opposition parties Monday rejected the provisional results of the presidential election, won by ruling party candidate and former general Mohamed Ould Ghazouani.  

Saturday's election had been billed as an historic event for the conservative Saharan desert nation, marking the first democratic transition in its coup-strewn history. But opposition parties said flaws in the vote had strengthened their fears of a power grab by the military.  

"We are going to organize protest demonstrations, it's our constitutional right," veteran opposition figure Mohamed Ould Moloud, who joined three other losing candidates, told a press conference late Sunday after the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) published the results. 

Ghazouani won the presidency outright with 52 percent of the vote in the first round of voting, according to the results which must still be confirmed by the country's constitutional council.  

He easily beat main opposition opponents Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, an anti-slavery activist credited with 18.58 percent of the vote, followed by Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar, a former prime minister, with 17.87 percent, according to the official figures.  

Journalist Baba Hamidou Kane and political newcomer Mohamed Lemine El-Mourteji El-Wavi, each garnered under three percent.   

Mauritania's outgoing President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, a general, came to power in a coup in 2008, and Ghazouani was his chief of staff for a decade.  

"Multiple irregularities... have eliminated any credibility" in the elections, said Boubacar. "We reject the results of the election and we consider that they in no way express the will of the Mauritanian people."  

He vowed the opposition would use "every legal means" to challenge the outcome.  

Second-placed Abeid told the news conference: "We are launching an appeal to the Mauritanian people... to resist, within the bounds of the law, this umpteenth coup d'etat against the will of the people." 

However, the four losing candidates called off a planned protest at the electoral commission headquarters on Monday. "We have decided to postpone the marche that was to have taken place today, perhaps until Thursday," Kane told AFP.  

The four are demanding that CENI publish a breakdown of the vote according to each polling station, so that they can compare the figures with their own data. CENI said voter turnout was 62.66 percent.  

The 62-year-old Ghazouani, who is also former head of the domestic security service, had already declared himself the winner in the early hours of Sunday in the presence of Abdel Aziz.  

(Cover: A man attends voting at a polling station during the presidential election in Nouakchott, Mauritania, June 22, 2019. /Reuters Photo)