The verdict further undermines the political fortunes of the coalition headed by Anwar Ibrahim, who is currently on trial in another court on charges of allegedly sodomizing a 24-year-old male former aide.

Prime Minister Najib Razak's National Front ruling coalition wrested control of Perak state from Anwar's alliance in February last year by convincing several legislators to switch sides.

The takeover was widely viewed to have been engineered by Najib several weeks before he became prime minister as an effort to restore morale in the National Front, which lost an unprecedented five of Malaysia's 13 states to Anwar's three-party People's Alliance in March 2008 national polls.

Opposition leaders have disputed the legitimacy of the takeover and staged protests demanding fresh elections in Perak to let voters decide who should govern the state, which is coveted by both sides for its diverse economic sectors, including car manufacturing, agriculture and tourism.

The Federal Court on Tuesday dismissed the opposition's claim that its top state lawmaker, Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, was wrongly replaced by the National Front's Zambry Abdul Kadir as chief minister of Perak. The decision to appoint Zambry was taken by Perak's sultan, who is the titular head of the state.

"There is no doubt that Zambry has the support of 31 out of 59 members of the assembly," a five-judge panel said in a unanimous verdict that upheld a similar verdict by a lower court in May.

The Federal Court is the final legal avenue for the opposition to challenge the takeover. The opposition can still file an application for the court to reconsider the verdict, but the court rarely reverses its own rulings.

Lim Kit Siang, a senior opposition leader, denounced the verdict as a "black day for justice, a grave setback for democracy and a grievous blow to (the) restoration of confidence in the independence of the judiciary."

Hamdi Abu Bakar, a state lawmaker for the National Front, urged the opposition to accept the outcome.

"They must come to the reality," Hamdi said. "If we respect democracy, if we respect the judiciary, we must respect the decision of the court. Why must we have fresh elections? We have the majority."

The opposition broke the National Front's longtime two-thirds majority in Parliament and won five states, including Perak, in the 2008 elections amid public grievances over how the government was tackling problems such as corruption, racial tensions and economic worries.

Both sides have struggled with problems since then, with the opposition gripped by factional disputes as well as a criminal trial involving Anwar, its top leader, who has been accused of sodomizing a 24-year-old male former aide.

The sodomy trial began last week with testimony from Anwar's accuser, who claimed the politician had sex with him in a private condominium in June 2008. Hearings have been postponed this week as Anwar has sought the removal of the trial judge over allegations of bias. The judge is expected to decide whether to step down from the case Wednesday.

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Associated Press writers Julia Zappei and Eileen Ng contributed to this report.