ICoast-vote,sched-lead
   Ivory Coast calm calm but tense after Ouattara's disqualification
   by Caspar Leighton
   ATTENTION - REPETITON, adding sched mention, ADDS details, background,
quotes ///

   ABIDJAN, Oct 7 (AFP) - The feared unrest following Friday night's
disqualification of oppostion presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara
failed
to materialise here as the streets remained deserted Saturday morning.
   The city was under curfew from 9:00 pm (2100 GMT) Friday and as the
military patrolled overnight in the more militant suburbs, people stayed at
home.
   The curfew lifted at 6:00 am (0600 GMT) Saturday morning and there was
very
little military presence in any part of the city.
   Most people were still staying at home with many shops remaining closed.
   Ouattara, a former prime minister and leader of the Rally of Republicans
(RDR) called for calm after hearing of his disqualification from the
presidential poll set for October 22.
   People appeared to have heeded his call in most of the capital's
residential quarters, residents said.
   The military government announced a curfew Wednesday, after an explosion
killed four people and injured seven in the afternoon, and further imposed
a
state of emergency that took effect at 6:00 am (0600 GMT) Friday.
   The ruling by the constitutional chamber of the Supreme Court
disqualified
all but five of the 19 presidential candidates, including most of those
considered serious challengers to military leader Robert Guei.
   Guei will run against four other candidates, the only other heavyweight
candidate included in the vote being Laurent Gbagbo, leader of the Ivorian
Popular Front (FPI).
   The FPI won the same number of seats as Ouattara's RDR in the last
election.
   Ouattara, who was barred from running over doubts over his nationality,
denounced the court's ruling as "a masquerade."
   The list of approved candidates had been approved by Guei, who only
wanted
adversaries he could easily beat, he said.
   Ouattara was considered by many observers to be a major electoral threat
to
Guei. The court ruling that barred him from running was neither legal nor
democratic, he told AFP.
   He cited the fact that all five candidates of the former ruling
Democratic
Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) were among those eliminated from the running as
further evidence of Guei's desire to fix the electoral race in his favour.
   Among the barred PDCI candidates was Henri Konan Bedie, the man Guei
ousted
as president in last year's December 24 coup.
   Emile Constant Bombet, the official PDCI candidate and Bedie's former
interior minister, was also ruled ineligible to run.
   PDCI secretary general Laurent Dona Fologo told AFP he was "disappointed
and surprised" by the decision to bar his party's candidate.
   The court said it had rejected Bombet because of legal proceedings
against
him. That meant he did not fulfil the constitutional requirements of "sound
morality and integrity", said the court.
   Both the RDR and the PDCI were meeting Saturday to consider their next
move. There is no appeal available against the Supreme Court's decision.
   crl/jj

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