Ivory Coast opposition leader promises to fight for democracy

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast - Ivory Coast's main opposition leader promised Saturday to continue a peaceful fight for democracy, remaining defiant despite a court decision that barred him from running against the country's junta leader in upcoming presidential elections.

In a veiled threat to the West African nation's military junta, opposition leader Alassane Dramane Ouattara said the regime is incapable of ''subverting the will of the people'' despite Friday's Supreme Court ruling.

Twenty candidates had submitted applications to participate in the Oct. 22 election, called to restore civilian rule. But only five, including junta leader Gen. Robert Guei, were found eligible to run, according to the court decision read late Friday. 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.

Some Ouattara supporters had warned of civil unrest if he was excluded. Junta officials had countered with threats of harsh reprisals for any violence.

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, referring to the opposition uprising in Yugoslavia that toppled President Slobodan Milosevic. ''One cannot predict what will happen in Ivory Coast.''

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.

In the streets surrounding Ouattara's hulking Abidjan mansion, where hundreds of supporters have camped out for weeks, young men wearing bandannas and white T-shirts reinforced sandbag barriers while chanting ''Ado,'' a popular nickname for Ouattara.

''If Ado tells us to die, we will die. We are just waiting for orders of what to do next,'' said one of the protesters, 24-year-old Mamadou Fofana.

In its ruling, the Supreme Court said it had doubts about the nationality of Ouattara's mother and argued that the opposition leader had repeatedly used the nationality of neighboring Burkina Faso. Ivory Coast's new constitution requires that both parents of a presidential candidate be Ivorian-born and bars candidates that have used another nationality. Ouattara insists he meets those qualifications.

With the exclusion of Ouattara and other major figures, Guei faces only one well-known politician, Laurent Gbagbo, a longtime opposition leader who has lost several previous election bids.

''Guei has assembled a team to run with him instead of against him,'' said Ouattara, saying none of the other contenders are threats to the military leader.

After seizing power in the coup - Ivory Coast's first - Guei initially promised a quick handover to civilians. But he has since traded his military uniform for a suit and tie and has rallied several small political parties around his candidacy despite international calls to step down.

The December coup shook Ivory Coast's standing as a stable financial and political power. The country has sub-Saharan Africa's third-largest economy, dependent on exports of coffee and cocoa.