by Caspar Leighton


   ABIDJAN, Dec 8 (AFP) - Ivory Coast's main opposition party on Friday
pursued talks with President Laurent Gbagbo's regime about its role in
upcoming general elections, although it appeared likely to maintain a
boycott
call.
   The Rally of Republicans (RDR) of Alassane Ouattara, which is mainly
supported by the country's Muslims, has announced a boycott of Sunday's
polls
in protest at a Supreme Court ruling barring Ouattara from standing on the
grounds that he had failed to prove his Ivorian nationality.
   The decision has led to protests in Abidjan by thousands of RDR
supporters
and a crackdown this week by police and troops in which more than two dozen
people have died and many others have been injured.
   Witnesses have reported systematic persecution of people suspected of
being
RDP supporters or of coming from the north, where Ouattara, a Muslim former
prime minister currently living in Paris, has his stronghold.
   RDR secretary general Henriette Diabate told AFP that a mediation
committee
had been set up for talks with the government and that the party would state
its final position later Friday.
   The RDR's acting spokesman, Ali Keita, said the party's participation in
Sunday's vote was dependent on the "rehabilitation" of Ouattara.
   The RDR has also been calling for a postponement of the vote.
   The government has proposed a rehabilitation of Ouattara -- but after the
election -- and Gbagbo has refused to counter a Supreme Court ruling against
the RDR leader, despite strong domestic and international pressure.
   Interior Minister Emile Bola Dougou said Friday that a postponement could
take place in some northern constituencies, but expressed scepticism about
any
talks with the RDR, claiming: "Negotiation is an all or nothing affair for
them."
   In the absence of Ouattara's party, Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI)
will face only one serious opponent, the Ivory Coast Democratic Party
(PDCI).
   The PDCI, which held power from independence until a military coup in
December 1999, is no longer the all-powerful united force it once was.
   The current situation marks a spectacular turnaround in the fortunes of
the
FPI, which was formed as a clandestine organisation in 1988 under the
intolerant regime of Ivory Coast's first president Felix Houpouet Boigny.
   When Gbagbo created the FPI it was initially dismissed as being the party
of the Bete ethnic group, but its status as the only credible opposition to
Houphouet Boigny's PDCI gained it considerable support.
   In 1995 elections, the FPI harvested 24 percent of the vote but was only
rewarded with 13 of 175 seats in the national assembly, the same number as
the
RDR, which only obtained half the amount of votes.
   Gbagbo's party is keen to see his victory in a controversial presidential
election in October consolidated in the national assembly. The poll was
organised by the military regime that took power in December 1999.
   This ambition has been thwarted on the international scene by the
elimination of Ouattara and the RDR's announced boycott.
   Donor organisations and the international community have let it be known
that the restoration of aid to Ivory Coast is contingent upon Sunday's vote
being free, fair and represenative.
   Since Ouattara's elimination, the United Nations, the Organisation of
African unity and the European Union have withdrawn their support for the
vote
and will not be sending any electoral observers.
   The violent repression of RDR demonstrations at the start of the week can
only have reinforced foreign opinion that the Gbagbo regime is more
concerned
with continuing the vendetta against Ouattara than in meeting the concerns
of
the outside world.
   crl/nb/ds
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