Less than a week after the Constitutional Council cleared and released the names of candidates qualified to participate in the Ivory Coast presidential elections, the country’s main presidential challenger and other opposition parties have called for more protests against President Alassane Ouattara’s bid for a third term, as tensions continue to rise.
The upcoming October 31 elections, which have been described as one of the biggest tests of stability in the West African nation since its disputed elections led to a brief civil war in 2010, will see incumbent President Ouattara go toe to toe against former president Henri Konan Bedie and two other candidates cleared to contest by the Constitutional Council and the Electoral Commission.
Speaking at a recent rally, Bedie told the packed opposition PDCI party hall in Abidjan that the parties after a meeting on Sunday had banded together in a bid to put a stop to Ouattara’s third term bid.
“It is left to us, in light of everything that has been said here, to protect the stability of the nation,” Bedie said, adding that in the face of Ouattara’s persistence, there was only one slogan left, “civil disobedience”.
At least a dozen people have been killed since anti-Ouattara riots broke out last month after he declared he would run following the sudden death of his handpicked successor in July. Despite the opposition’s claim that Ouattara, elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2015, was violating the constitution by seeking a third term, the ruling party and the Constitutional Council cited a constitutional change which reset the clock on his presidency.
Other Demands for Ivory Coast
Other than their call for civil disobedience, the opposition parties also called for the dissolution of the Constitutional Council and the Electoral Commission.
“The political parties are demanding the withdrawal of Alassane Ouattara’s candidacy, the dissolution of the Constitutional Council, and the dissolution of the Electoral Commission, because of its subservience to the ruling RHDP party,” said Saraka Patrice, an opposition party leader.
Parties in Ivory Coast backing the demands include Georges Armand Ouegnin’s Assembly for Democracy and Sovereignty (EDS), which includes the fringe of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) representing Laurent Gbagbo, Albert Mabri Toikeusse’s Union for Democracy and Peace in Côte d’Ivoire (UDPCI), Guillaume Soro’s Generations and People in Solidarity (GPS), Mamadou Koulibaly’s LIDER and Danielle Boni Claverie’s Republican Union for Democracy (URD).
