Sporadic violence flared in Ivory Coast on Saturday after Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara was chosen by his ruling party to run for a third term in an October election, despite furious opposition charges the move is unconstitutional.
Ouattara, in power since 2010, said in March he would not stand again, but changed his mind after the death of Ivorian prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly — seen as his anointed successor — of a heart attack last month.
After his official nomination on Saturday, Ouattara vowed to score a first-round knockout victory before tens of thousands of supporters at an Abidjan rally.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“Going back on my decision was not easy,” said Ouattara, who insisted: “There is nothing preventing me from standing.”
“I did not have the right to place my personal project above the urgent situation in which the country finds itself,” he said.
However, his party’s decision provoked outrage among young opposition supporters who took to the streets to voice loud and violent protest in several major cities.
The constitution limits presidents to two terms, but 78-year-old Ouattara and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock, allowing him to seek a third.
Opposition and civil society groups say his standing again amounts to a “coup” that risks triggering chaos in the world’s biggest cocoa producer.
Violence erupted in several towns, notably Divo, a cocoa-growing center 200km northwest of Abidjan, where pro-opposition youths clashed with young supporters of the ruling party.
“There are people wounded. The small bus station, bars and shops have been set on fire and looted,” Davo’s political representative Famoussa Coulibay said.
“There have been police reinforcements. We will try to calm things down with the leaders of the community,” Coulibay added.
Gagnoa, the home town of former president Ivorian Laurent Gbagbo further to the northwest, saw unrest as did Bonoua in the southwest, the hometown of former first lady Simone Gbagbo.
Ouattara’s ruling Houphouetist Rally for Democracy and Peace party nominated him as its candidate at the rally.
“We remain focused on the election, with a record to defend and a project to propose to Ivorians,” party spokesman Mamadou Toure said, branding the street demonstrations against Ouattara’s candidacy a “dismal failure.”
The government on Thursday announced a ban on all outdoor protests until Sept. 13.
Outtara’s change of heart has heightened tensions before the Oct. 31 vote.
Ivory Coast is still traumatized by a brief civil war that erupted after 2010’s election, when then-president Gbagbo refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara.
On Friday, election authorities rejected appeals by Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in October.
The two men had appealed to the Independent Electoral Commission against a decision to not include them in electoral lists for the ballot.
Soro was once an ally of Ouattara, helping him to power during the post-election crisis in 2010, but the two eventually fell out.
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