Opposition leader Alassane Ouattara was named winner of Ivory Coast’s violence-marred presidential election yesterday, but authorities close to incumbent Laurent as Gbagbo branded the result invalid.
World powers sharpened their warnings to the country’s leaders to settle the dispute peacefully as the electoral commission declared Mr Ouattara the winner but was slapped down by the state’s Constitutional Council, the final arbiter of the results.
Bloodshed erupted ahead of the announcement when security forces shot dead eight people at a local headquarters of Mr Ouattara’s RDR party in a largely pro-Gbagbo district of Abidjan, witnesses said.
Amid the tension and bloodshed the commission broke its silence, saying Mr Ouattara, a former IMF executive and bitter rival of the President, won 54 per cent of the vote and Mr Gbagbo, who has been in power for a decade, 46 per cent.
But top Gbagbo ally Paul Yao N’Dre, the head of the Constitutional Council promptly appeared on state television to declare them invalid.
The commission “missed its deadline for giving provisional results” by midnight Wednesday, he said. “From that moment, the CEI is not in a position to announce anything.”
Mr Ouattara called on his “brother” Gbagbo to accept the result, promising to form a unity government and “bring together the nation in the values of peace, forgiveness, reconciliation and union.”
After an emergency meeting yesterday, the UN Security Council warned it would take “appropriate measures” – a veiled threat of sanctions – against anyone who obstructs the election process.
Chaotic scenes prevented results being announced on Tuesday amid accusations of cheating by both sides, though the United Nations mission said the election was sound overall.
The polls aimed to end a decade of instability in the world’s top cocoa producer but were marred by violence, with at least seven people killed ahead of the vote on Sunday. The army confirmed Wednesday night’s incident in a statement, but said it erupted when an army patrol had come under fire. Soldiers returned fire, killing four people, it said.
Witnesses and a police source said that eight people were killed, and around 15 bleeding and moaning victims of the attack were recovering in an Abidjan hospital yesterday.
“When the gendarmes arrived, they encircled the headquarters and started firing wildly,” said one of the wounded, Amidou Traore.
“They shot me in the foot and knocked me down with the butts of their Kalashnikovs,” he said.
An official of Gbagbo’s FPI party, Lazare Zaba Zadi, said meanwhile that two people were injured and a vehicle set alight in an attack on one of its offices nearby.