Haiti's electoral commission said yesterday that hip hop artist Wyclef Jean cannot run for president, ending his outsider's bid to lead a country struggling to recover from the 12 January earthquake.

Former Fugees frontman Jean, 40, who faced a challenge to his candidacy in the 28 November elections because he has not lived in Haiti for the past five years as required, issued a statement urging supporters to remain calm and respond "peacefully and responsibly to the disappointment... Though I disagree with the ruling, I respectfully accept the committee's final decision, and I urge my supporters to do the same," he said.

The electoral commission approved 19 candidates and rejected 15, spokesman Richardson Dumel said. While rejecting Jean, the board approved two leading candidates, former prime minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis and Yvon Neptune, who was the last prime minister under ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and has been active in co-ordinating reconstruction efforts.

Also allowed to run were Jude Celestin, head of the government's primary construction firm and the candidate supported by current president René Préval, and Michel Martelly, a well-known Haitian singer known as 'Sweet Mickey'. The commission rejected the candidacy of US ambassador Raymond Joseph, who is Jean's uncle. Préval is barred from running for re-election under the constitution.

Jean apparently knew which way the decision would go. The entertainer had been in a hotel near the electoral commission office in the capital Port-au-Prince, but left abruptly without speaking to journalists about an hour before the announcement. He issued his statement later.

Dozens of police and UN peacekeepers in riot gear were stationed outside the electoral council office, but there were no signs of unrest.

The singer had brought a sizzle to the election, attracting fresh attention to a country still devastated by the earthquake.

"His candidacy certainly did shake things up," said Laurent Dubois, a Haiti historian and professor at Duke University. "But it's still a very important election whether Wyclef is in it or not."

The decision had already been delayed once because of uncertainty over candidate qualifications.

Jean, who gained famed as a member of the Fugees before building a solo career, had no political organisation, not much of a following beyond fans of his music, and only a vague platform, casting himself as an advocate of Haiti's struggling youth and saying he will ask reconstruction donors to help the country's dysfunctional education system.

He also has faced persistent criticism over alleged financial mismanagement at the charity he founded, Yéle Haiti.

On the other hand, he has drawn global attention to a race in which almost no-one outside Haiti could even name any of the candidates.

"If he hadn't been involved, today, no one would be talking about candidates in the Haitian presidential election," said Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University in Texas.

The singer's fame and wealth instantly made him a formidable candidate in the desperately poor Caribbean nation he left as a boy.

Earlier last week, Jean said he had received death threats from somebody who called and told him to get out of Haiti.