   |
|
afrol.com, 14 October - After the top oppositional candidates were barred from standing in 22 October presidential elections by a Supreme Court ruling, they now stand united calling for a boycott of the elections. - Without the presence of the country's two major political forces, any presidential elections could never be credible, the Republican Rally (RDR), Côte d'Ivoire's major opposition party, stated on Friday, according to Associated Press. The party was urging its members to boycott the presidential elections. The day before, the former Ivorian ruling party in, the PDCI, its members to boycott the poll. All the applicants of the PDCI, including former President Bédié, exiled in Paris since the coup d'état of the present President General Robert Guei 24 December 1999, had been rejected as candidates. The PDCI met in Abidjan on Thursday, "in an overheated atmosphere of suspicion," as the Ivorian newspaper Fraternité Matin describes it. The meeting concluded that the PDCI would not in any way participate in the elections and that it "in no case was ready to go into compromising" on this matter. With the RDR participating in the election boycott, the presidential elections have lost their credibility. The RDR has been the principal opposition to Guei's military junta, while the PDCI practically has ruled the country for forty years. The excluded candidates "represent 90 percent of the electorate and 90 percent of the parliament," RDR Ouattara stated on behalf of the barred candidates last week. Analysts claim that, under the given circumstances, the candidate Laurent Gbagbo is the only possible match for president Guei in the elections. Laurent Gbagbo leads the Ivorian Popular Front, FPI, but reportedly also is a member of Guei's ruling party (the National Committee for Public salvation, CNSP). International and internal condemnations grow after the Ivorian Supreme Court on Friday barred 15 of the 19 presidential candidates from standing in October 22 elections. The United States earlier had made a statement saying that "the people of Cote d'Ivoire deserve the right to freely vote for the candidates of their choice in an inclusive, free, fair, and transparent electoral process." The US has repeated its protests after the court ruling. Protests also came from the European Union, France and the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which had tried to mediate in the conflict. France described the ruling as "undemocratic". Both the United States and the European Union have frozen election funding, according to the BBC. The European Union declared that it regrets the decision of the Supreme Court "which, although within the sphere of responsibility of the Côte d'Ivoire judicial authorities, severely limits the choice open to Côte d'Ivoire electors and threatens the credibility of the elections on 22 October." A spokesman for the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a statement that Annan (himself from neighbouring Ghana) strongly deplored these restrictions on the free choice of the voters of Côte d'Ivoire. The Secretary-General further recalled that the United Nations has repeatedly demanded that the authorities in Côte d'Ivoire work on a political transition leading to a return to constitutional legality, based on democratic elections for the President and legislature that are open and transparent.
|
