20110409
reuters

DJIBOUTI (Reuters) - Djibouti's President Ismail Omar Guelleh garnered 80.58 percent of votes cast in the country's elections on Friday, provisional results showed on Saturday, giving him a third term in power.

Interior Minister Yacin Elmi Bouh said Guelleh's rival, Mohamed Warsama, got 19.42 percent of votes cast in the election, which had a 69.68 percent turnout.

Just over 152,000 people are registered to vote in the small Red Sea state which has the only U.S. military base in Africa and the largest French army camp on the continent. It is also used by anti-piracy naval patrols.

Guelleh called on television for all Djiboutians to unite and start work so they could overcome the challenges ahead together.

He said whatever people voted, there were more things that united Djiboutians than divided them, adding the election result was not a victory for one side, but for the nation as a whole.

The opposition in the former French colony initially boycotted the ballot and tried to start Egyptian-style protests in February. Thereafter it supported independent candidate Warsama, a former president of Djibouti's Constitutional Court.

The opposition claimed ahead of the election there was little chance of it being free and fair, given the crackdown on demonstrations in a country which is ranked by the United Nations as one of the poorest in the world.