Ivory Coast: CEI announces new elections for local electoral commissions
The Independent Electoral Commission has announced its intention to organize elections for its constituent local commissions.
(illustrative image) REUTERS / Luc Gnago
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With less than two months of the presidential election in Côte d'Ivoire, the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) announced its intention to organize new elections for local electoral commissions, when these commissions were one of the points of tension with the opposition.
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With our correspondent in Abidjan,
François Hume-Ferkatadji
In mid-July, a judgment of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) ordered the State of Côte d'Ivoire to reform the organization of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), and all particularly of these 558 local electoral commissions, spread over the entire territory and responsible for reporting to the central body the results of the election on October 31.
The elections of the representatives of the offices of the local commissions "
at the regional, departmental, sub-prefectural and communal level
" will be held on September 15, announced the CEI in a press release.
To date, 98% of the 558 local electoral commissions are chaired by a member of the ruling party, the RHDP [Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la democratie et la paix].
Opposition parties as well as the African Court of Human Rights, felt that this organization was unbalanced in favor of the presidential party.
The spokesperson for the CEI, Emile Ebrottie, however, affirms that these new elections are not consecutive to the judgment of the African Court, but are provided for in the texts of the CEI.
The president of the CEI, Ibrahim Coulibaly-Kuibiert, explains that, at the end of August, he had already tried to re-elect the members of these local commissions by convening new offices.
But the opposition had not taken part in the movement.
The September 15 ballot is the last chance.
Will the PDCI [Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire] propose lists?
The main opposition party did not wish to communicate its intentions.
The question is sensitive because there remain deep disagreements about the composition of the central body of the CEI.
"
We do not understand the eagerness of the CEI to organize new elections at the local level, while the composition of the central commission is not complete,
" said Jean-Gervais Tchedié, spokesperson for EDS, the support platform for candidate Laurent Gbagbo.
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