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BRAZZAVILLE - More than 80 percent of voters in Congo-Brazzaville have approved a new constitution granting the president wider powers, according to referendum results released late Wednesday.

The interior ministry said in a statement that 84.26 percent of people who cast their votes Sunday were in favour of the draft constitution, while 11.29 percent voted no.

Results are still provisional and have yet to be officially confirmed.

The ministry said 77.98 percent of 1.6 million voters turned out for the referendum, the first vote in the war-ravaged country in more than eight years.

A dozen opposition parties boycotted the poll, saying the draft constitution would strengthen President Denis Sassou Nguesso's powers ahead of upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections.

They said the constitution would usher in a "tropical monarchy" and "legitimise personal and absolute power" in the country. They also accused the government of "clan-based management and pillaging of oil resources."

The draft would give the president full executive powers to appoint and dismiss ministers, and prevent parliament from removing the head of state from office.

The president would be elected for a seven-year term that could be renewed only once.

The constitution also proposes a bicameral parliament composed of a 137-member national assembly and a 66-seat senate.

There is no provision for censure motions against the government and the assembly cannot bring down the president, nor can he in turn dissolve the body.

Turnout was high, at 76 percent, in the Brazzaville neighborhoods of Makelekele and Bacongo, both strongholds of former prime minister Bernard Kolelas, who is currently in exile.

On Monday, a group of non-governmental human rights organisations decried irregularities in the voting process, saying they were evidence of the government's willingness to push through the new constitution at any cost.

The government did not invite any international observers to witness the referendum vote.

Nguesso, who seized power in 1997 from former head of state Pascal Lissouba, urged the Congolese to approve the constitution, in the interests of "peace and stability."

Presidential, legislative, local and senatorial elections are due between March and June.

Oil-rich Congo-Brazzaville has been wracked by conflict over the last 40 years, with nearly a dozen coups and military uprisings.

An estimated 20,000 people died and another 800,000 were made homeless over the last decade of political and ethnic conflict, which largely pitted Nguesso's northern supporters against groups in the more densely-populated south. Nampa-AFP

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