Presidential candidate of October 31 in Côte d'Ivoire, Pascal Affi N'Guessan, Prime Minister under Laurent Gbagbo, has filed a request to invalidate the candidacy of President Alassane Ouattara.

In this "request" dated September 6, Pascal Affi N'Guessan and the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI, founded by Laurent Gbagbo) ask the Constitutional Council to "declare Mr. Ouattara ineligible and therefore reject his candidacy". 

While the Constitution limits presidential terms to two, the announcement of the outgoing head of state's candidacy for a third term sparked deadly protests in August.

Supporters of Alassane Ouattara claim that the change of the Constitution in 2016 reset the counters to zero, which the FPI disputes.

"Did the advent of the new Constitution during his second term have the effect of resetting the accounts of his two previous terms to zero? The answer is clearly negative and does not suffer from any ambiguity," said the text of the request.

The tension is growing

Political actors and civil society are worried about a rise in tension in Côte d'Ivoire, ten years after the post-electoral crisis born of the refusal of outgoing President Laurent Gbagbo to recognize the victory of Alassane Ouattara.

Former Minister of Laurent Gbagbo, Charle Blé Goudé told him Monday in The Hague, where he is on parole, that the presidential election should be postponed.

"To organize the ballot in such circumstances would be to drive our country right into the wall," he said.

"We must postpone the ballot, take advantage of this postponement to organize national meetings that would make it possible to seek consensus", continued the one who was acquitted of crimes against humanity at first instance by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and awaits a possible appeal trial.

Charles Blé Goudé, 48, head of the Pan-African Congress for Justice and Equality of Peoples (Cojep) has repeatedly announced his desire to be a presidential candidate in 2025, but not in 2020.

The Ivorian Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) said on September 3 that it had received 44 candidacy files, including those of Laurent Gbagbo, still in Belgium, and the former rebel leader and former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, who resides in France.

With AFP

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