President Laurent Gbagbo has promised Ivory Coast will hold elections this year but after years of missed deadlines, rows and political turmoil, many of his war-weary citizens no longer believe him.

In Bouake, the main city of rebel-held Ivory Coast whose ruined buildings and potholed streets still bear witness to the 2002-3 war that carved the country in two, anger is growing.

"These elections will never, ever happen," said Diabi Bako, 30, a market trader selling books and shoulder bags in Bouake's trash-strewn, crowded backstreets.

"Even if they give us another date, it'll just be the same thing. (Gbagbo) doesn't want elections, because he might lose."

The polls were meant to happen in 2005, but bickering over rebel disarmament and voter registration have set back date after date.

A row between Gbago and the electoral commission has made organising polls at the end of this month or in early March look all but impossible in the world's top cocoa grower.

Gbagbo last month accused the commission, which is led by an opposition politician, of trying to illegally add 430 000 disputed names to the voter list, although the commission says the leaked names were never intended to be on the final roll.

Opposition challengers Alassane Ouattara and Henri Konan Bedie say Gbagbo is just stalling the process to extend his mandate, a charge he denies.

"There's a general lack of political will to allow the process to function smoothly," said Richard Moncrief, West Africa Director of the International Crisis Group.

"Gbagbo doesn't quite know if he'll win a fair election. He loses nothing by allowing obstacles to be created."


Troubled road to peace


Few Ivorians have felt the pain of losing their status as West Africa's economic hub as much as those in the rebel north.

Frustration at Ivory Coast's slow peace process, which the prime minister admitted was "troubled" this week, boiled over into riots in the rebel-controlled western town of Man on Friday, when rioters overran security forces at a court house.

Businesses in Bouake complain of constant harassment and racketeering by men with guns. Weeds sprout and thrive on the decaying husks of abandoned buildings.

"You wouldn't recognise this city if you saw it before the crisis," said Hamed Sangare, 33, who carves wooden sculptures.

"There was more business, things were cheaper, the streets weren't so dirty. Life was good; now the common man suffers."

The latest row over names on the voter list has exhumed the festering issue of Ivorian nationality and who is eligible to vote the dispute which largely lay behind the civil war.

In recent decades, Ivorian politicians have exploited tensions by discriminating between nationals and "foreigners" usually generations of migrants from Burkina Faso and Mali who in some cases were Ivorians with foreign-sounding names in the Muslim north of the country. The south is mostly Christian.

Ouattara was banned from a 2000 poll because of his foreign parentage.

Critics accuse Gbagbo or at least some of his more hawkish supporters of tapping into the same xenophobic sentiments.

The United Nations peacekeeping mission has called for calm after election-related protests in a number of Ivorian cities, but is keen to see the polls held promptly. But both Gbagbo and the rebels insist it is more important to solve the issue of voter registration thoroughly than quickly.

"We cannot go to elections under these conditions, because the same causes will produce the same effects," said New Forces cabinet chief Cisse Sindou. "The cause of this crisis was identity and the issue will take time to solve."

The New Forces rebel commanders, who stand to lose lucrative commodity smuggling fiefdoms when the nation is reunited, are also seen to be in no great rush for the polls.

"I'm confident the elections will happen this year," rebel deputy commander Issiaka Ouattara told Reuters in the garden of his house, wearing gold bracelets and sitting in front of a Porsche Cayenne parked out back.

"We still have 10 months of the year to go. In 10 months, we can do a lot."

Pic: President Laurent Gbabgo of the Ivory Coast

Source: www.af.reuters.com