ABIDJAN: Alassane Ouattara looked likely to secure a fourth term as Ivory Coast president when final results are released Monday, with early tallies pointing to a landslide victory in a race from which two major rivals had been banned.
Ouattara, 83, has led the world’s top cocoa producer since 2011, when the country began reasserting itself as a west African economic powerhouse.
Official results from some of Ouattara’s northern strongholds showed him winning upwards of 90 percent of the vote with turnout close to 100 percent.
The final results are expected Monday at 1100 GMT, according to the electoral commission, and the president-elect would be announced early in the afternoon.
The political veteran was also ahead in traditionally pro-opposition areas in the south and parts of the economic hub Abidjan, where polling stations had been almost empty on Saturday.
In reaction to the preliminary results, Jean-Louis Billon, one of several opposition candidates, offered his congratulations to Ouattara on his “re-election.”
“While the election took place in a generally peaceful and secure atmosphere … the process was not without irregularities,” said Billon, expressing concern about “a very low turnout, particularly in certain regions.”
Those concerns were echoed by others.
“We are seeing a very clear divide between the north and the south,” Simon Doho, leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) told AFP, highlighting the discrepancy in turnout.
“Doubts can be raised about the legitimacy of a president elected under these conditions,” he added.
Electoral commission president Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert put turnout at around 50 percent – a similar level to 2020, when Ouattara won 94 percent of the vote in an election boycotted by the main opponents.
Poll violence
This time around, Ouattara’s leading rivals – former president Laurent Gbagbo and Credit Suisse ex-CEO Tidjane Thiam – were both barred from standing, Gbagbo for a criminal conviction and Thiam for having acquired French nationality.
With key contenders out of the race, Ouattara was the overwhelming favorite to secure a fourth term.
None of the four candidates who faced Ouattara on Saturday represented a major party, nor did they have the reach of the ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP).
While election day was generally calm, incidents were reported at 200 polling stations across the country, according to security forces.
Clashes broke out in several localities in the south and west, but these incidents had “no major impact on the voting process,” according to Interior Minister Vagondo Diomande.
On Saturday, a 13-year-old boy was killed by a shot fired in the center-west town of Gregbeu and a Burkinabe national died during clashes in the Gadouan region, security sources said.
Twenty-two others were injured by gunshots or stab wounds, one of whom is in critical condition.
Six people have died this month during the election period.
With the opposition calling for protests and unrest turning deadly in recent days, the government declared a night-time curfew in some areas and deployed 44,000 security forces.
The government also banned demonstrations, and the courts have sentenced several dozen people to three-year jail terms for disturbing the peace.
A smiling Ouattara was met with cheers from activists at his party’s headquarters in Abidjan after polls closed on Saturday evening.