N'DJAMENA (Reuters) - Chad's opposition on Monday rejected as rigged election results which handed President Idriss Deby a third five-year term in the central African oil producer.

According to official results announced on Sunday, Deby won the May 3 presidential elections with 77.5 percent of the vote. His re-election had been widely considered a formality after opposition parties boycotted the election, calling it a farce.

"It is a grotesque machination. We do not recognise the result," former President Lol Mahamat Choua, who heads the Coordination of Political Parties for the Defence of the Constitution (CPDC) opposition coalition, told Reuters.

The closest runner-up to Deby in the May 3 vote accused Chad's Independent National Election Commission (CENI) of rigging the results.

"I really can't recognise myself in these results. I thought we were going to a second round. I even won in certain regions," said former Prime Minister Kassire Coumakoye, who finished well behind Deby with 8.8 percent in the official results.

He condemned the CENI, which also announced a voter turnout of 61 percent, as "a real instrument against democracy".

Western diplomats and journalists had reported seeing a low, unenthusiastic participation in the polls, as well as numerous irregularities, such as children under the voting age of 18 years casting ballots.

"The voter turnout does not correspond to reality, to the truth of what happened at the polling stations ... We knew the results would be like this. We do not recognise their legitimacy and we will soon take action," the CPDC's Choua said, without giving details.

The polls went ahead despite a rebel attack on the capital N'Djamena three weeks earlier and despite calls from opposition groups and some foreign governments for Deby to postpone the election and open a dialogue with his opponents.

The rebels who launched the April 13 attack, in which several hundred people were killed, have also condemned the election as a sham and said they would continue their efforts to end by force Deby's nearly 16 years in power.

They have also rejected an initial offer of a dialogue from the president, demanding his government agree to a transition leading to fresh elections.

Deby, 54, a French-trained pilot, has ruled Chad since his Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) rebel group seized power in a revolt from the east in 1990. He won elections in 1996 and 2001, though international observers noted irregularities both times.

Deby accuses neighbour Sudan of backing the campaign by the rebels to oust him, a charge denied by Khartoum.

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Last updated: 15-May-06 17:45 BST