PARIS, Oct 10 (AFP) - Former Ivory Coast president Henri Konan Bedie on
Tuesday called for a boycott of presidential elections later this month.
   The opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) "has no choice but
to
... ask its militants and electors to boycott the presidential election
without violence and to contest the validity of the results of this rigged
vote in advance," Bedie said in a statement received here.
   On Friday Ivory Coast's supreme court validated the candidacy of only
five
contenders for the October 22 election, including the country's military
leader Robert Guei, and banned all PDCI candidates, notably Bedie, ousted in
a
coup by Guei last December.
   It also banned prime minister Alassane Ouattara from standing.
   Ouattara, in an interview published in the French daily Le Monde
published
earlier Tuesday, asked France and the European Union to follow the lead of
the
United States and suspend aid for the organisation of the elections.
   hr/bb/sas

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