The National Electoral Commission declared Kagame, the incumbent, the winner with 95.05 percent of the vote in Monday's polls, the first since up to a million people -- mainly Kagame's minority Tutsi kinsmen -- were massacred in the 1994 genocide in the central African country.

Twagiramungu, a moderate Hutu who returned from exile to run in the election, garnered 3.62 percent, while a third candidate, former minister Jean-Nepomuscene Nayinzira, won 1.33 percent, the election chief said.

An overwhelming 96.5 percent of the country's four million eligible voters -- or half the population -- cast ballots in the poll, he said.

"In accordance with the law, I will have to appeal to the Supreme Court," Twagiramungu, a former prime minister, told a press conference here, complaining of both "fraud" and "pressure" during the polling.

When asked to elaborate, Twagiramungu charged that his supporters had been "pressured" to vote for Kagame. A spokesman, reading from a statement, said: "Many of candidate Twagiramungu's supporters have been submitted to political torture in order to force them to leave his camp."

Kagame, 46, campaigning on a theme of national unity, had been widely expected to win the poll giving him a seven-year mandate and consolidating his hold on power since his guerrilla force ended the government-led genocide nine years ago.

Twagiramungu, 58, has been accused of ethnic "divisionism" by government media as well as the electoral commission, a serious accusation in the traumatized country.

Earlier Tuesday, Kagame claimed victory before an enthusiastic crowd in Kigali's main football stadium. "Victory! Victory! Thank you for this victory," said the former guerrilla leader as more than 15,000 supporters cheered wildly.

The overwhelming margin of victory raised eyebrows among analysts here, as did a decision by the Twagiramungu camp not to post polling agents at the voting stations for fear of being seen as interfering.

"We don't understand his position. Was it total discouragement at the end of a campaign in which he was harassed, or the result of intimidation?" one regional observer asked of the opposition leader, saying the decision "left the field free" for possible manipulation.

Another analyst, requesting anonymity, told AFP: "If I were he (Kagame), I'd have done it differently, for the sake of my own credibility. With a score like that, he has all the powers."

The campaign -- in which Twagirimungu had to run as an independent after his party was banned -- was marred by repeated accusations of government-sponsored intimidation of opposition supporters, several of whom disappeared.

A regional human rights leader, Noel Twagiramungu, described Kagame's landslide win in the elections, which were also the first multi-party polls since independence from Belgium more than 30 years ago, as "too much".

"It looks like the return of single-party rule," said Twagiramungu, no relation to the opposition candidate. "It's good for Mr. Kagame to legitimize himself as the sole and irreplaceable leader, as the savior. But it's a shame for a country that wants to be democratic and open to other possibilities."

Speaking shortly before Kagame was officially declared the victor, US deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the United States would welcome the opportunity to work with the president again.

"We'll welcome working with President Kagame and his government on various issues of mutual interest that we have: regional stability in the Great Lakes region and other things," Reeker told reporters.

In neighbouring Burundi, the main ethnic Hutu party hailed Kagame's election victory as an example to follow for its own ethnically-riven central African state.

"The victory of President Kagame may serve as an example in Burundi, since the Rwandan people, who have just emerged from the nightmare of 1994, elected a member of the ethnic minority," the Front for Democracy in Burundihead Jean Minani told journalists.

EU observers gave a mixed appraisal of the polling, noting reports of "difficulties" as well as assessments that the poll took place without problems.

Around 70 EU observers as well as dozens more from the African Union and countries including Switzerland, Norway and Canada monitored the vote.

TERRA.WIRE