Seychelles Court Probes Presidential Win
Seychelles' Constitutional Court on Monday began hearing an opposition party appeal to overturn election results, after President James Michel won a second-round vote in December by the slimmest of margins.
The electoral commission said that Michel, 71, had won the second round of the election by just 193 votes -- with 50.15 percent support against 49.85 percent for his rival, five-time loser Wavel Ramkalawan.
The opposition Seychelles National Party (SNP) claim neither won an outright majority, arguing that 1,062 invalid votes should also be counted in the overall total.
"We say that all votes in the box should be counted," Bernard George, SNP lawyer, told the Seychelles New Agency.
Michel has already been sworn into office for a third term alongside his vice-president Danny Faure.
The appeal hearing in Victoria, the capital on the Indian Ocean archipelago's main island of Mahe, is expected to take up to three months.
A former British colony, the Seychelles is made up of 115 islands lying off the coast of east Africa, some scattered up to 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from Victoria.
Source: Agence France Presse
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