Voters awarded the 65-year-old president another seven year term of office, some marking their yes-or-no ballots with bloody fingerprints as a sign of loyalty.

Turnout was impossible to estimate, as foreign election observers were banned and journalists were confined to specific areas, but the vice-chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council, Izzat Ibrahim, said all 11,445,638 eligible voters cast ballots. Members of the Iraqi parliament are to administer the oath of office later today.

"This is a unique manifestation of democracy, which is superior to all other forms of democracies even in these countries which are besieging Iraq and trying to suffocate it," Mr Ibrahim said at a news conference in Baghdad.

President Saddam, who was appointed head of state in 1979, won 99.96% of the vote in the first referendum on his rule in 1995. He may have been looking for an improved performance in the face of attack threats from the US and Britain.

The White House had dismissed the one-man race in advance. To get a vote total at all - let alone a 100% "yes" vote - Iraqi officials would have had to gather and count millions of paper ballots, some from remote areas far from Baghdad.

"Obviously, it's not a very serious day, not a very serious vote and nobody places any credibility on it," the White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said in Washington yesterday.

Iraqis in Baghdad could be heard firing in the air in celebration after Mr Ibrahim's announcement of the results in parliament. The government already had declared the day a national holiday, even before the results.

Clusters of men took to the streets, dancing, at the news. One of them, Nabir Khaled Yusef, a van driver, said: "My feeling is of happiness. This referendum and the 100% shows that all Iraqis are ready to defend their country and leader."

Mahmoud Amin, a retired civil servant, said: "This is a great day to celebrate. We are not surprised with the 100% vote for the president, because all Iraqis are steadfast to their president, who has been known to them for 30 years."

On Tuesday, it was apparent that the vote was different from what most people know in democratic societies. Some voters stuffed bunches of ballots into boxes, saying they represented the votes of their entire families.

Mr Ibrahim defended the 100% figure when asked by reporters whether such a percentage wasn't absurd.

"Someone who does not know the Iraqi people, he will not believe this percentage, but it is real. Whether it looks that way to someone or not," he said. "We don't have opposition in Iraq. They are situated in northern Iraq. Inside Iraq, there is no opposition."

In a poll among Kurds in northern Iraq - who are not under President Saddam's control - 94.5% questioned said they would not vote for him.

The vote was widely advertised not only as backing for President Saddam but as a rebuke to the US, which has been pressing in the UN security council for a resolution that would sanction military action for "regime change" in Iraq. Mr Ibrahim referred to the US as the "forces of injustice and illusion".