Ivory Coast electoral commission says President Alassane Ouattara has overwhelmingly won another term in office. His two main rivals had boycotted the votes and urged opposition supporters to stay home on election Day.
Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara has been re-elected to a third term after securing 94.27% of the vote, which was announced on Tuesday by the Electoral Commission.
It is said that the president’s victory in the October 31 election had been expected due to two leading opposition calling on their supporters to boycott the vote.
Their EC said the final voter turnout was 53.90% but the opposition claimed that only 10% of Ivorians took part in the elections.
The European Union on Tuesday expressed deep concern over post election tensions in Ivory Coast.
Clashes surrounding the vote have claimed at least 30 lives in the West African country. There are also fears of a repeat of the election related unrest that killed more than 3,000 people in 2010/2011, when then President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara.
Ouattara, had been in power for nearly a decade. He initially announced that he would not seek a third term in other to make way for a new generation. But he reversed that decision after his party’s candidate died in July.
The opposition called his reelection bid an illegal attempt to stay in power, given that the Ivorian Constitution limits Presidents to two terms.
This doesn’t apply to him because of a constitutional amendment passed in 2016 that allowed him to restart his mandate.