Ivory Coast: only 40% of voters have withdrawn their cards

A voter card during the legislative elections in Côte d'Ivoire, December 18, 2016. REUTERS / Thierry Gouegnon

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

Côte d'Ivoire votes this Saturday, October 31 for the first round of the presidential election.

Nearly 7.5 million Ivorian citizens are called upon to slip their ballot into the ballot box.

They had until last Sunday to withdraw their voting cards.

But less than half of registered voters turned out to pick it up.

A weak mobilization which could be explained by the call for civil disobedience and an active boycott launched by the opposition.

Publicity

Read more

With our correspondent in Abidjan,

With more than 900,000 new voters registered on the electoral rolls, popular enthusiasm for this year's presidential election appeared to be certain.

But the card withdrawal rate of just 41% seems to indicate the opposite.

The Independent Electoral Commission announced Monday afternoon, 26 afternoon, that only three million registrants have actually recovered the precious sesame at the end of the card distribution period.

The CEI had indeed observed a slowdown in the delivery of the famous cards.

A slowdown that she attributes

by opposition activists, who still challenge the legitimacy of this election.

For Issiaka Sangaré, secretary general of the FPI of candidate Pascal Affi N'Guessan, this low withdrawal rate shows that the opposition's watchword is being respected.

He even believes that the Electoral Commission has inflated his figure.

The opposition coalition met yesterday and the spokesperson also called for the spread of civil disobedience throughout the country.

Our civil disobedience is peaceful and democratic, our goal is neither to attack anyone, nor to destroy any property.

We therefore call on our compatriots to mobilize to counter Alassane Ouattara by extending civil disobedience throughout Côte d'Ivoire.

We denounce in advance the sending of observers to observe an election that excludes all candidates (...).

Pascal Affi N'Guessan

Pierre Pinto

It remains difficult to estimate to what extent voter turnout could be affected.

But the CEI recalls that the cards will wait for voters in their polling station on D-Day, and that the number of 22,000 polling stations remains unchanged contrary to what President Alassane Ouattara announced in an interview with the French weekly. the

.

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Ivory Coast