Paris - Representatives of former French presidential candidate Segolene Royal have formally asked the Socialist Party to annul last Friday's vote for party leader, the online edition of the daily Le Monde reported on Tuesday.

According to the still-official vote count, Royal lost the election to Lille Mayor Martine Aubry by 42 votes, out of nearly 135,000 cast, a margin of just 0.04 per cent.

"The way the election was carried out provoked a deep indignation considering the number of irregularities certified and the small number of votes separating the two candidiates," Royal's representatives on a party commission examining claims of vote irregularites wrote in a letter to that commission.

The 13-member commission began its work on Monday. Later on Tuesday, it is to present its conclusions to the Socialist Party's national council, which will then formally decide whether to call another election or make Aubry the party's first-ever female leader.

Since Aubry and her anti-Royal allies have a large majority on the council, it is widely expected that the Lille mayor's narrow victory will be declared official.

However, Royal's three representatives to the commission wrote that the number of irregularities detected "arouses suspicions about the real intentions of those who were responsible for them, and could be interpreted as fraud."

As a result, "Segolene Royal could be considered the winner of the election as much, if not more, than Martine Aubry," the letter declared.

Royal's top aide, Vincent Peillon, told France Info radio on Tuesday that when the vote-count commission interrupted its work on Monday, only 4 votes separated the two candidates, a statement that has not been officially confirmed.

"There is no arithmetic solution to the dispute," Peillon said, and called on the Socialists to "establish a procedure to vote again."

Peillon said Royal would go to court if the Aubry's election is made official.

If Royal is declared the loser, it will probably put an end to her ambition to face off against President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 presidential election. Sarkozy beat her by a substantial margin in the 2007 vote.

However, the bitter dispute is provoking such bad blood within the party, and causing it to lose so much credibility, that Sarkozy may have little trouble defeating any Socialist candidate, if he chooses to stand again in 2012. (dpa)