Guinea-Bissau's supreme court ruled on Tuesday that 14 candidates, including ousted rulers Kumba Yalla and Joao Bernardo Vieira, could run in the June 19 presidential election, Reuters reported. The court published a list with the names of the 14 candidates who were cleared to run and 7 others who had been rejected. There was no immediate comment from court officials or any of the candidates. Yalla's and Vieira's bids to return to politics have fuelled fears of chaos in the poor former Portuguese colony, which has seen coups and civil war since independence in 1974, Reuters said. Yalla was allowed to contest the poll for his Social Renewal Party despite having been barred from political activity for five years after he was ousted in a 2003 coup. He had threatened to seize power again if his candidacy -- which the U.N. Security Council has said could jeopardise the election process -- was blocked. Guinea-Bissau, whose population of around 1.5 million people scrape by on an average $140 a year, has been unstable since a bloody army revolt in 1998 that led to Vieira's departure. --More 2353 Local Time 2053 GMT
