Opposition may get victory in Ivory Coast vote

Opposition may get victory in Ivory Coast vote

ABIDJAN (Agencies): Early returns Monday showed an opposition candidate in a close race with the junta leader in Ivory Coast's elections, billed as a return to civilian government 10 months after a military coup.

Opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo predicted victory over Gen. Robert Guei, although the votes counted so far from Sunday's election came from mainly rural areas and small towns. Ballots in major cities, including Abidjan, had yet to be tabulated.

Gbagbo had 51.35 percent and Guei had 40.40 percent of the 126,683 ballots counted so far, a national election commission official announced on state-run television. The remaining votes were divided between three minor candidates.

Final results remained far from clear. The preliminary figures accounted for a tiny fraction of the total possible vote from about 5.5 million registered voters.

Turnout figures were incomplete, although voting often was reported at less than 30 percent in a random check Sunday of polling stations in Ivorian cities.

Election officials reported a turnout of just 34 percent in the areas counted so far. Voters were nearly nonexistent in many parts of Korhogo, the main city in the north and a stronghold of support for the disqualified main opposition leader, Alassane Dramane Ouattara.

The country's two largest political parties boycotted the ballot after their leaders were barred from running.

Gbagbo - a former history professor and left-leaning politician - was the only candidate who posed a threat to the junta leader.

He said victory looked apparent. "We believe we have won," he told cheering supporters at his campaign headquarters early Monday morning.

International observers reported minor irregularities, including missing voting materials and confusion over electoral procedures, but attributed the problems to "disorder, not malice," said an official for the European Union, which had about 30 observers across the country.

Most candidates, including those from the country's two largest political parties, were disqualified last month by the Supreme Court. Those two parties, Ouattara's Rally of the Republicans and the former ruling Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast, called the boycott.

The United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, the European Union and countries such as the United States and Canada withdrew election observers or funding, saying the exclusion of major opponents made a truly free and fair election impossible.

Guei (pronounced GAY-EE), whose own soldiers have staged two mutinies since the coup and who, officials say, survived an assassination attempt in September, has barely appeared in public during the campaign, apparently fearful of his security.

Guei has seen his popularity plummet since the December coup, when cheering crowds filled the streets of some neighborhoods to welcome the ouster of President Henri Konan Bedie, who was widely seen as corrupt and ethnically divisive.

Gbagbo (pronounced BAHG-bo), for his part, has long said he believed most voters would oppose Guei, who for many remains a soldier - albeit one who now sports a suit and tie.

Many of Gbagbo's supporters were already addressing him as "president," and warned they would take to the streets if he was not declared the winner.

However, Ivory Coast's ruling junta was adamant Monday that Gen. Robert Guei would win the presidential election in the face of open triumphalism from opposition candidate Laurent Gbagbo.

"We will win and win well," said Capt. Henri Sama, junta Communications Minister speaking to journalists at Guei's campaign headquarters.

"The only results that count are those of the National Electoral Commission," repeated Sama.

The minister said Guei's camp was "ready to recognize the verdict of the ballot box" and called on the FPI to do the same when the results are finally announced.

Official result from 7.8 percent of the electorate gave Gbagbo an overall majority with 51.35 percent and Guei 40.40 percent.