ABIDJAN, Oct 24 (AFP) - Ivory Coast was on tenterhooks Tuesday as it awaited official results from a weekend presidential poll through which military ruler General Robert Guei wants to hang on to power, as his main civilian challenger Laurent Gbagbo claimed victory. A tense calm had returned to the streets of Abidjan, the commercial capital, after security forces on Monday violently quelled protests over delays by the National Electoral Commission (CNE) in releasing results from the Sunday polls. Official figures from the vote -- the first step in Ivory Coast's return to civilian rule after 10 turbulent months under Guei's military regime -- were expected to be released at 11:00 a.m. (1100 GMT) on Tuesday. The delay, which fuelled fears that the government was trying to rig the figures, triggered protests by supporters of Gbagbo, who claims to have captured 61 percent of the vote. Soldiers used truncheons and tear gas to break up the demonstrations on Monday. On Tuesday, activity in Abidjan had returned to normal, with buses and taxis functioning normally, and shops open, although some schools near the electoral commission sent their pupils home. Early results released Monday showed that Gbagbo, a 55-year-old history professor, had captured 51 percent of the votes against 40 percent for Guei, but the figures were based on only eight percent of the ballots cast. Overall turnout among an estimated 5.4 million registered voters has not been officially announced. On Monday, soldiers entered the CNE offices in Abidjan, barred journalists from entering the building and spread panic among staff there. CNE chief Honore Guie appeared on national television to dispel rumours that he had been arrested. The independent daily newspaper Le Jour said the military ruler's "young people" had barged into the commission because they were "unhappy with initial electoral results." The paper said the soldiers had unplugged the commission's computers and attempted to arrest Guie. In an interview with a French private radio station in Paris, Gbagbo called on Guei to step aside and hand over power. "If he (Guei) has lost, let him hand over power to me; there is no other solution," he told Europe 1 radio. Gbagbo claimed he had captured 61 percent of the vote from more than half the votes tallied by his party in a parallel count to that of the electoral commission. Once a stable and relatively prosperous nation, Ivory Coast has been gripped by mounting political and military unrest. Financial aid has all but dried up, sending its struggling economy into crisis. The credibility of Sunday's vote has been seriously damaged because of a controversial ruling by the Supreme Court which barred all but five of 19 presidential candidates from standing in the poll. As a result, the Organisation of African Unity and the European Union decided not to send any election observers apart from the 30 EU long-term observers already in place. A main opposition rival excluded from the vote, Alassane Ouattara, said he did not believe that Guei was ready to hand over power. "I don't know if he'll be beaten by the ballot, but in any case, everything suggests that General Guei is not ready to hand over power," Ouattara, a former prime minister of Ivory Coast, told French state radio in Paris. Ouattara, who was barred from running because authorities said he used a foreign diplomatic passport in the 1970s and could not prove his Ivorian parentage, called the election a sham. He also said his party, the Rally of Republicans, would not recognise an eventual victory of Gbagbo. "No, no, we will not recognise it. We consider these elections illegitimate because the procedures were corrupted from the start. The main candidates were not allowed to participate," Ouattara said. sa/jlr/gd _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------