Nouakchott, Mauritania ? The president who has led this Saharan nation for the past 19 years, moving it from support of Saddam Hussein to close ties with Washington and Israel, won re-election, his government declared Saturday. The top challenger, who was backed by Islamic hard-liners, emerged from hiding and claimed the vote was a fraud.

President Maaoya Sid’Ahmed Ould Taya’s victory ensured that Mauritania — a nation dominated by its Arab population — will remain a rare ally in the region of both Israel and the United States.

After all votes were tallied, the Interior Ministry declared Taya the first-round winner with 67 percent of Friday’s vote. The results must still be validated by the courts.

His strongest competitor among five challengers, fundamentalist-backed Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidalla, trailed with 19 percent, the Interior Ministry said.

To avoid a runoff, Taya needed support from 50 percent voters in a nation that straddles Arab and African worlds on the edge of the Sahara.

The country has never seen a peaceful and democratic transfer of power since independence from France in 1960. Taya himself seized control in a 1989 coup, overthrowing Haidalla, then a military dictator.

Taya’s veiled and caftaned supporters took to the sun-baked streets of the capital to celebrate Saturday’s results.

Waving scarves, they honked horns and craned out of car windows.

Haidalla, an Arab like Taya, went into hiding as soon as polls closed Friday, fearing detention after security forces abruptly arrested, then released, him on election eve.

A supporter of re-elected President Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya celebrates by making a traditional loud whistling sound, through the sunroof of a car in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott. Supporters paraded through the streets Saturday after hearing that Taya had been re-elected with 67 percent of the vote.

He emerged a day later, however, to tell reporters that while he still feared arrest, “the captain can’t abandon a sinking ship.”

The opposition candidate gathered with two other challengers to denounce the vote as an “electoral masquerade” that they would challenge in Mauritania’s highest court.