PORT GENTIL: Gabon security forces clashed with protesters early Saturday as authorities of the oil rich African nation struggled to quell opposition to the election of Ali Bongo as president.

At least two people have been shot dead in three days of unrest since the results were announced. One opposition party has called for "resistance" to the declaration of the son of the country's longtime strongarm leader as new president.

Security forces battled looters through the night in the second city of Port Gentil where a curfew has been ordered after a police station and the offices of French companies have been attacked.

Residents said they heard shots throughout the night.

Public buildings and a sports and social club run by French oil company Total were destroyed in new attacks. On Friday stores and petrol stations in the West African country's oil capital were attacked and set ablaze.

Demonstrators ransacked a police station and then freed detainees from the cells before torching it.

France evacuated most of its citizens out of Port Gentil after the French consulate there was razed on Thursday. It has told French nationals in the rest of the country to stay in their homes.

French troops are protecting the consulate and France, the former colonial power, has a military base near the capital, Libreville. But interim defence minister Jean-Francois Ndongou has ruled out asking French troops to help.

Extra security has been ordered for a football World Cup qualifying match between Gabon and Cameroon in Libreville on Saturday.

Gabon's Interior and Security Minister Jean-Francois Ndongou said a night-time curfew in Port Gentil would remain in place until further notice.

Many Port Gentil residents compared the unrest with violence that erupted in the city in 1990, when an opponent of late president Omar Bongo, who died in June, was found dead under suspicious circumstances.

Ali Bongo, the late president's son, was declared winner of last Sunday's election with 42 percent of the vote.

Andre Mba Obame, a former interior minister, won 26 percent of votes. Main opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou came third with 25 percent. But all three had proclaimed victory after the polls closed.

Ali Bongo urged his defeated rivals to accept the outcome.

"The people have spoken and the people are sovereign," he told France's Le Monde daily.

"The contest is now over... A majority has spoken in favour of a particular candidate. From today, he is now the president of the whole of Gabon."

Mba Obame has called the result an "electoral coup" and insisted that he does not recognise it.

Mamboundou's Union for the Gabonese People (UPG) has called for "resistance" against the election result and said it was unsure where the leader was.

The UPG said it had had no news of Mamboundou since a demonstration outside the electoral commission on Thursday was violently broken up. Sources have told AFP however that Mamboundou has gone into hiding.

Security forces teargassed and baton charged demonstrators, including Mba Obame and Mamboundou outside the electoral commission headquarters before the results were announced Thursday, witnesses and their supporters said.

The authorities denied there was any action against the opposition leaders.

On Friday, the African Union urged the Gabonese to show "great restraint", and abstain from acts compromising peace and security in the country.

Home to 1.5 million people, Gabon is strategically important as the fourth largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa. It is also a major exporter of manganese and wood.