[ 2011-12-11 ]

Ivory Coast holds first post-Gbagbo elections
ABIDJAN (AFP) - Ivorians voted Sunday to elect a
new parliament in a poll boycotted by the party of
former strongman Laurent Gbagbo, who is awaiting
trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity.

"I came to vote so that Cote d'Ivoire can find
peace again," said Mathieu Kouakou, a mechanic,
after he cast his ballot in Abidjan's bustling
Adjame district.

With Gbagbo sitting in an International Criminal
Court (ICC) cell, the coalition backing President
Alassane Ouattara is widely expected to gain a
majority of the 255 seats in the new assembly.

The vote comes only a year after the poll that
brought the world's top cocoa producer, once a
beacon of stability in the west African region, to
the brink of civil war in a conflict that claimed
some 3,000 lives.

And it follows a week of campaigning that left
five people dead.

Some 25,000 members of the Ivorian security
forces, backed by 7,000 members of the UN
peacekeeping mission, will be deployed to ensure
security during the election in this country of 21
million people.

"Acts of violence, intimidation or obstruction
cannot be tolerated," said Bert Koenders, the head
of the UN mission.

Prime Minister Guillaume Soro on Thursday issued
an "urgent appeal to all political parties and
candidates to put an end to the violence
surrounding the (parliamentary) election."

He had noticed the presence of military personnel
in the campaign teams of some candidates, he said,
adding that they would be "identified and
punished."

Initial turnout was low at Abidjan polling
stations visited by AFP journalists in Adjame as
well as Koumassi, where the main market is
located, and in the central city of Bouake.

Sangare Sanissi, a voter in Adjame, told AFP:
"This is to turn the page on a black period in our
country. We're too tired, we have to go forward."

Only around 10 people were waiting along with
Sanissi to vote at a polling station where dozens
had turned up for the disputed November 2010
presidential poll.

In Bouake, a Ouattara stronghold, turnout appeared
far lower than in last year's vote.

Trader Mariam Coulibaly, 49, a local official for
Ouattara's Rally of the Republicans party, said:
"We must vote for our country's reconstruction and
reconciliation."

A septuagenarian farmer Drissa Diallo, wearing a
long white tunic, was among the first to vote in
Bouake's working-class Dar Es Salam district.

Showing his ink-stained finger, he said: "I hope
the elections will bring a final end to the crisis
so the country can regain its stability."

After a political and military crisis lasting more
than a decade, weapons including home-made guns,
Kalashnikov assault rifles and rocket-launchers
are circulating freely in the country.

About 5.7 million voters will cast their ballots,
with polling stations to close at 5:00 pm (1700
GMT), watched over by 150 international and 3,000
Ivorian observers.

Election results are expected mid-week.

Violence erupted in the former French colony after
the November 2010 presidential run-off when
Gbagbo, who held on to his job five years after
his initial mandate expired in 2005, refused to
concede defeat to Ouattara.

Source - AFP

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