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ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Thousands rioted over Ivory Coast's election preparations on Friday, overrunning security forces in a town in the west of the biggest cocoa-growing nation, officials and witnesses said.

The rioting in Man, close to the Liberian border, was the latest violent protest by youths fearing they would be excluded from voting in a dispute over election lists that risks further delaying polls first scheduled for 2005 and now due in March.

Analysts say elections are a prerequisite for attracting investors and paving the way for reform of the ailing cocoa sector, which saw a drop in production last season.

President Laurent Gbagbo and the opposition are locked in a row over who should run the electoral commission and the composition of voter lists.

The dispute has focused attention again on the question of nationality and eligibility to vote, an issue central to a 2002-2003 civil war which left the West African nation divided in two.

The prime minister called on Burkina Faso's president, who has been mediating efforts to end the political stalemate that followed the war, to help find a solution.

"We were overrun by the mass of people. There were 5,000 of them and the 200 people in charge of security could do nothing," Lacine Mara, a spokesman for the local military commander, said.

"The courthouse was attacked but we were able to save some administrative materials," Mara added.