Côte d'Ivoire: Gbagbo's party denounces "irregularities" on the electoral list

The PPA-CI, the party of Laurent Gbagbo, denounced Tuesday, May 30, "irregularities and fraud" on the electoral list, from which the former Ivorian president is still removed, three months before the municipal and regional elections.

Laurent Gbagbo's chief of staff, Habiba Touré, president of "Safe", a body created by the PPA-CI to fight against electoral fraud, said at a press conference that her teams had noted "irregularities" on the electoral list on May 30, 2023, in Abidjan. © Marine Jeannin/RFI

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At a press conference in Abidjan, Habiba Touré, president of "Safe", a body created by the Party of African Peoples - Côte d'Ivoire (PPA-CI) to fight electoral fraud, said the list was "riddled with irregularities and fraudulent elements". Ms. Touré, also Laurent Gbagbo's chief of staff, first assured, screenshots of the list in support, that minors "between 3 and 14 years old" were registered.

At the microphone of our correspondent in Abidjan, Marine Jeannin, she noted the names of people "born in the nineteenth century" before evoking the case of deceased personalities, but still registered. "Looking at the list, it can be noted that minors are registered on the electoral list. People born in the nineteenth century, and who are reasonably doubtful that they are still alive, are nevertheless registered on the electoral list. Deceased persons are registered on the voters' list. »

Finally, Ms. Touré deplored the fact that several people convicted of crimes, and therefore supposedly deprived of their civil and political rights, are still registered on the electoral roll. Persons convicted of crimes are registered on the electoral roll. People with two or even three unique numbers, the famous so-called unique number, there are people who have two or three, and they are on the voters list. All these people, all these duplicates can be registered on the electoral list... but not President Laurent Gbagbo.

>> READ ALSO: Côte d'Ivoire: Laurent Gbagbo still absent from the electoral list

According to her, these cases "totally undermine the credibility of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), which appears to be a tool to eliminate political opponents, rather than as an independent administrative authority." These few cases sufficiently demonstrate the discretionary nature of the decision taken by the IEC to leave some and not the other on the electoral list, depending on whether they can be considered as potential candidates for the presidential election or not. All these incongruities noted on the electoral list necessarily highlight the political nature of the decisions taken by this institution.

Questioned by RFI on Tuesday, a spokesman for the IEC did not wish to comment and indicated that the IEC was waiting for the receipt of the complaints. Appeals can be filed from 1 to 10 June.

>> READ ALSO: Côte d'Ivoire: the absence of Laurent Gbagbo on the electoral list makes the political class react

On May 20, the commission published the electoral list without Gbagbo's name, indicating that he was among the 11,000 people stripped of their civil and political rights, following a conviction. Although he was acquitted by international justice of crimes against humanity committed during the bloody post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011, he remains under sentence of 20 years in prison in Côte d'Ivoire for the "robbery" of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) in 2011.

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• Ivory Coast