Gbagbo's party to boycott Ivory Coast vote

The party of ousted Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo plans to boycott next month's legislative election, its interim leader Miaka Oureto said on Saturday. "The Ivorian Popular Front (PFI) will not take part in the election. We will not participate in a contest whose results are known in advance and for which everything has been done to try to humiliate us," Oureto told AFP. Gbagbo was arrested in April after four months of a crisis that erupted when he refused to concede defeat to Alassane Ouattara in last November's polls and left around 3,000 people dead. Ouattara on Friday rejected any possible delay in the December 11 election to allow the PFI to contest the vote, although in the past he has said he wanted the party to take part. "There is no more debate on the date. The subject is closed," he said during a visit to neighbouring Burkina Faso. Oureto listed a number of "minimum conditions" that the FPI wanted met if it were to participate, including "the re-establishment of security, public financing of political parties, the return of exiles and the release of militants". The election commission in the Ivory Coast on November 10 published a list of 946 candidates -- among them 439 independents -- for 255 seats in parliament. Commission vice president Sourou Kone said however that some FPI members were running as independents, while some smaller parties allied with the FPI had submitted last-minute candidates.