THOUSANDS of people in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s capital, have taken to the streets to protest the exclusion of opposition leaders from the forthcoming presidential election.
The protesters converged in Yopougon, a densely populated suburb of Abidjan, carrying banners with inscriptions namely, “Enough is enough!”, “No true democracy without true justice,” and “We are millions saying YES to Gbagbo and Thiam.”
The ICIR reports that the protest stemmed from the decision of the Independent Electoral Commission to bar four key opposition figures, including former President Laurent Gbagbo and former Credit Suisse CEO, Tidjane Thiam, from contesting in the October 25 presidential race.
Thiam, who leads the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire, secured his party’s nomination in an uncontested primary, and is widely regarded as the leading challenger to President Alassane Ouattara.
He was controversially removed from the voter roll in April after a court declared him ineligible to run due to his dual Ivorian-French nationality.
Gbagbo and his close ally, Charles Blé Goudé, were removed in relation to charges of crimes against humanity linked to the country’s civil war.
“My elimination from the electoral list by the Independent Electoral Commission [CEI] is a sad but eloquent example of Ivory Coast’s drift towards a total absence of democracy,” Tidjane Thiam, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), said in a statement.
Earlier this year, Gbagbo and Thiam formed an alliance to challenge incumbent President Alassane Ouattara.
Eighty-three-year-old Ouattara, who has led the country since 2011, is included on the electoral register and he announced in July that he would seek a fourth term.
Ouattara defended his decision to run, citing unprecedented security, economic, and monetary challenges facing Côte d’Ivoire that he said required experienced leadership to address effectively.
Ouattara’s candidacy faced opposition after he amended the constitution in 2016 to abolish presidential term limits.
He won the 2015 and 2020 elections with more than 80 percent of the vote. During the October 2020 presidential election, Ouattara revised the electoral roll.
The final voters’ register for this year’s election contains 8.7 million people who will decide the country’s next leader.
The ICIR reports that elections in Côte d’Ivoire have often been marked by tension and violence. When Ouattara declared his bid for a third term, election-related unrest left several people dead.
Ouattara joins a growing list of West African leaders who have extended their stay in power by amending constitutional term limits.
In the region, poor democratic leadership had led to coups, with putschists citing corruption public office holders and need for electoral reforms as justification for seizing power.
This has deepened divisions within the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) of which Cote D’Ivoire is a member.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.