Barred Candidate Calls Ivory Coast Election Illegitimate

Former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara said Saturday that a presidential election from which he and other key candidates have been barred will have no authority.

“This election cannot have any legitimacy,” Ouattara told reporters at his mansion here in the West African country’s main city. “This decision was imposed by [army ruler] Gen. Robert Guei.”

Ouattara promised to continue a peaceful fight for democracy but said the nation’s military junta is incapable of “subverting the will of the people.”

Friday’s supreme court ruling barred Ouattara, as well as candidates belonging to the former ruling Democratic Party, or PDCI, from running.

Twenty candidates had submitted applications to participate in the Oct. 22 election, called to restore civilian rule. But only five, including junta leader Guei, were found eligible to run. Ouattara was rejected along with former President Henri Konan Bedie, the leader ousted by the military junta last winter, and ex-Cabinet minister Emile Constant Bombet, who now heads the former ruling party.

This left Socialist Laurent Gbagbo as Guei’s only significant opponent.

On Saturday, Ouattara accused Guei of “buying” the decision from court chief Kone Tia, the junta leader’s former attorney. He called Tia “one of the most corrupt judges in Ivory Coast.”

Ouattara urged his supporters to remain calm, instructing them in a statement to “preserve our dear Ivory Coast from violence and to assure that the peace to which we are all attached is not threatened.” But he warned that public anger over the decision could still explode.

“We know from Serbia what happens when the will of the people is being ignored,” he said.

There were no immediate signs of unrest in Ivory Coast, where a state of emergency and nighttime curfew have been in effect since Friday.

In Abidjan, the country’s commercial capital, many stores were closed and there were fewer people in the streets than usual.

But buses were running normally and security forces kept a low profile.