The two leading opposition candidates in the Ivory Coast presidential vote, scheduled to hold on the 31st of October, have asked their supporters to actively boycott the electoral process. This comes as the West African nation officially begins its 2020 presidential campaign.
The candidates, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, a former prime minister, and Henri Konan Bedie, a former president, called on their supporters not to participate in the electoral process, going against President Alassane Ouattara’s decision to run for a third term.
“The electoral process underway does not concern us…we ask our supporters for an active boycott through all legal means,” former Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan told reporters in a joint appearance with a fellow leading opposition candidate, former President Bedie.
Affi N’Guessan also asked supporters in Ivory Coast to “refrain from participating, both with regards to the distribution of voter registration cards and with regards to the electoral campaign,” calling for them to “block the electoral coup that President Alassane Ouattara is preparing,” and “to prevent any operation linked to the ballot from being held.”
Out of 44 would-be candidates, the electoral commission allowed only four contestants to be on the ballot — Alassane Ouattara, 78, Konan Bedie, 86, Affi N’Guessan, 67, and Kouadio Konan Bertin, 51.
The candidacies of ex-President Laurent Gbagbo, who lives in exile, and of ex-Prime Minister Guillaume Soro were rejected by the electoral body, leading to protests. Although the Ivorian constitution allows only two terms in office, incumbent Ouattara received the Constitutional Court’s green light to run for a third term. The court reasoned that due to a constitutional amendment in 2016, Outarra’s first two terms in power did not count.
The move leaves only one candidate in Ivory Coast, Bedie’s former ally, Kouadio Konan Bertin, in the race against Ouattara, who is seeking a third term in office.
Ouattara’s move to run again has drawn fierce criticism from opponents who say he is violating constitutional term limits.
