Citizens of the West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire went to the polls on Saturday. At the same time, some opposition supporters attempted to disrupt the vote in response to calls from two of their rivals to oppose incumbent President Ouattara’s re-election for a second term.
The capital, Abidjan, was calm and largely deserted, in contrast to the sometimes violent conditions that prevailed during the election campaign. The presidential vote was seen as a test of stability for Côte d’Ivoire. The country is the world’s number one cocoa producer and has one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.
Some eyewitnesses for Reuters said that the voting was smooth. People lined up in an orderly fashion at polling stations in many areas.
But in the Brockhouse neighborhood of Abidjan, about 20 young men blocked the entrance to a school to prevent voters from entering. The police later went there to disperse them.
It was civil disobedience,” said Bigley, 31, one of the young men who tried to block the vote. He (Ouattara) has been president for two terms and should step down.”
It is unclear whether large numbers of people did not vote, and whether calls by opposition figures to boycott the election have been echoed elsewhere in Côte d’Ivoire.
Election-related street clashes that have claimed 30 lives since August this year are reminiscent of 2010, when Ouattara won the election. At that time, Ouattara won the elections, but then a brief civil war erupted in the country, killing 3,000 people. At the time, Ouattara’s predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, refused to step down.
The current violence is between 78-year-old Ouattara’s supporters and his opponents. Ouattara’s critics say he is flouting the law by running again, as the constitution limits presidents to a single term, and that in doing so he is endangering Côte d’Ivoire’s hard-earned economic growth.
Ouattara, for his part, says he could run for re-election under the new constitution adopted in 2016, and that he did so only because his chosen successor died suddenly in July of this year. Ouattara is considered likely to win the election.
Critics have called Ouattara’s re-election a new blow to democracy in West Africa. In August, a military coup took place in Mali, and in October, President Condé of Guinea was re-elected to a third term.
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