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Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara on Monday invited his main rival, Henri Konan Bedie, to speak to defuse a dispute over his re-election to a third term, as the clashes killed at least nine people.
Ouattara won the October 31 vote by an overwhelming majority, but Côte d’Ivoire is caught in a crisis after opposition leaders boycotted the ballot and vowed to establish a rival government.
About 50 people have been killed in poll-related violence since August, reviving fears about a repeat of the post-election crisis from a decade ago that left 3,000 dead.
Ouattara, 78, invited Bedie to a “meeting in the next few days for an open and frank dialogue that will help restore trust” and urged opposition leaders to end their protests.
His announcement came after at least nine people were killed in clashes in the center of the country as the highest court in Côte d’Ivoire formally validated the election results and Ouattara’s third term.
“I ask all my fellow citizens in a spirit of appeasement … to work to strengthen peace,” Ouattara said in a national broadcast.
There was no immediate response from Bedie, an 86-year veteran politician and former president of the West African country.
Bedie’s home in Abidjan has been blocked by security forces and two other leaders have been arrested in an investigation into the insurrection after their election protest.
Clashes broke out when the Constitutional Council of Côte d’Ivoire ratified the results of the elections. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP) Opposition leaders had called for a campaign of civil disobedience over the vote because they said Ouattara was violating the presidential two-term limits.
Ouattara says a 2016 reform allowed him to run again by effectively resetting term limits to zero.
New clashes broke out between rival ethnic communities in east-central Daoukro, Bedie’s fiefdom, on Monday, authorities said, as well as unrest in other regions.
The clashes in Daoukro left six dead and 41 injured on Monday, local government administrator Solange Aka told AFP.
He said one person had been beheaded and another burned when protesters blocked roads.
Three more people were killed in downtown Elibou during clashes between security forces and protesters blocking a road, local residents said. However, authorities did not immediately confirm those deaths.
Political turmoil in Côte d’Ivoire since the controversial 2010 presidential elections. By Gillian HANDYSIDE (AFP) Much of the violence has resulted in clashes between local ethnic groups allied with the opposition and Dioula communities considered close to Ouattara, a Muslim from the north.
The president of the Constitutional Council, Mamadou Kone, said on Monday that the highest court ratified the results and noted that “there are no serious irregularities” in the conduct of the elections.
“Alassane Ouattara is elected in the first round,” Kone said in a statement broadcast on television.
Opposition leaders in Côte d’Ivoire are now under investigation for insurrection and terrorism after they rejected the result and called on their rival “transitional” government.
Two opposition leaders, former Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Maurice Kakou Guikahue, a deputy from Bedie’s main opposition party, the PDCI, have been arrested.
After several tense days, Abidjan, the economic capital of the former French colony, has mostly returned to its usual bustle, though brief clashes broke out in one district on Monday.
Call for talks
United Nations human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet called for dialogue on Monday and expressed concern about the arrests and blockades.
“It is in no one’s interest to feed the threat of growing political instability,” he said in a statement.
“I urge political leaders from all sides to work together to defuse tensions through dialogue, not security responses and heavy-handed arrests.”
Diplomats and government sources say talks are underway between the two sides to ease tensions in the largest economy in French-speaking West Africa.
Ivorian gendarmes have blocked access to the residence of the head of the opposition, Henri Konan Bedie. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP) The bitter rivalry between Ouattara and Bedie has shaped Ivorian politics for decades along with the country’s ethnic and regional loyalties.
In power since 2010, Ouattara had said that at the end of his second term he would make way for the next generation, raising hopes that the long-running feud between the country’s leaders would end.
Supporters praised him for bringing economic growth and stability to the world’s top cocoa producer after years of unrest.
But the sudden death of his chosen successor in July led him to change his mind.
His candidacy angered opposition leaders, fueling tensions over a possible post-election crisis similar to that of 2010-11 when then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept Ouattara’s defeat.
The country was already divided in two after a civil war in 2002: the north in the hands of the rebels and the south by the forces of Gbagbo.
Ouattara won a long-delayed 2010 election, but Gbagbo refused to resign despite Ouattara’s international recognition.
French troops finally intervened when Abidjan became a battlefield and those loyal to Ouattara were able to eject Gbagbo from his bunker.
