Ivory Coast has seen a wave of communal violence ahead of the Oct. 31 presidential elections, amid a civil disobedience campaign called by the opposition. In the coastal town of Dabou, some 50 kilometers west of the economic capital Abidjan, several have been killed and scores arrested over the past week. In the inland town of Bongouanou, the home of opposition candidate Pascal Affi N’Guessan was burned down during street clashes. In nearby Kotobi, the the gendarmerie headquarters was ransacked. The violence has taken on an ethnic cast, with members of the local Agni ethnic group in the country’s east-central and coastal zones pitted against Dioula people from northern Ivory Coast, who back current President Alassane Ouattara. The opposition rejects Ouattara’s quest for a third term as unconstitutional. (Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, BBC News, AP, The Africa Report, The Africa Report)
Photo: CIA
Ivory Coast divided in wake of elections
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara has provisionally won a third term in office with 94% of the vote, the electoral commission announced, after a bitter election which sparked deadly violence and which the opposition boycotted. The opposition candidates who finally opted to call a boycott of the vote—ex-president Henri Konan Bedie and ex-prime minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan—have said they will not recognize Ouattara’s victory. The Ivorian constitution limits presidents to two terms, but Ouattara says the approval of a new constitution in 2016 allowed him to restart his mandate. (Al Jazeera)