Ivorian parliamentary election, 2011

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A parliamentary election was held in Ivory Coast on 11 December 2011, [1] [2] [3] after the presidential election which was held in late 2010. This followed a peace agreement between the government and the New Forces (former rebels) that was signed in March 2007. [4] The Rally of the Republicans, the party of President Alassane Ouattara, won just under half the seats in the National Assembly.

Ivory Coast State in West Africa

Ivory Coast or Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country located on the south coast of West Africa. Ivory Coast's political capital is Yamoussoukro in the centre of the country, while its economic capital and largest city is the port city of Abidjan. It borders Guinea and Liberia to the west, Burkina Faso and Mali to the north, Ghana to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south.

Rally of the Republicans

The Rally of the Republicans is a liberal party in Ivory Coast. The party is the country's governing party; the party's leader, Alassane Ouattara, is the current President of Ivory Coast.

Alassane Ouattara President of Côte dIvoire

Alassane Dramane Ouattara is an Ivorian politician who has been President of Ivory Coast since 2010. An economist by profession, Ouattara worked for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Central Bank of West African States, and he was the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire from November 1990 to December 1993, appointed to that post by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Ouattara became the President of the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), an Ivorian political party, in 1999.

Contents

Background

Following the agreement, the election was planned to be held in the first quarter of 2008. [4] On 6 August 2007, then-president Laurent Gbagbo said it would be possible, with goodwill and determination, to hold the election as early as December 2007. [5] [6] This was greeted with widespread skepticism by observers and the opposition, who said that the preparations for elections would be incomplete at such an early stage. [6] It was announced on 12 September that the process of voter identification and registration would begin on 25 September, [7] and if it went well it was expected to be completed by the end of 2007. [8] On 13 September the President of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), Robert Mambe, said that the presidential election should be held, "at the latest", ten months after the end of the identification process, around October 2008, [7] and that the parliamentary election should be held 45 days after the presidential election. [8] On 18 September Gbagbo again expressed his desire to see the elections held quickly and said that he was opposed to the "remote dates" being suggested. [9]

Laurent Gbagbo 4th President of Côte dIvoire

Koudou Laurent Gbagbo is an Ivorian politician who was the President of Côte d'Ivoire from 2000 until his arrest in April 2011. A historian, Gbagbo was imprisoned in the early 1970s and again in the early 1990s, and he lived in exile in France during much of the 1980s as a result of his union activism. Gbagbo founded the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in 1982 and ran unsuccessfully for president against Félix Houphouët-Boigny at the start of multi-party politics in 1990. He won a seat in the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire in 1990.

The public hearings of the identification process are intended for about three million people born in Côte d'Ivoire who do not yet have identification papers. The hearings were launched on 25 September and were to be held first in Ouragahio and Ferkessédougou, respectively the home regions of Gbagbo and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro. [10] The French company Sagem was designated as the technical operator of the electoral register in November 2007. [11]

Ouragahio Town, sub-prefecture, and commune in Gôh-Djiboua, Ivory Coast

Ouragahio is a town in south-central Ivory Coast. It is a sub-prefecture and commune of Gagnoa Department in Gôh Region, Gôh-Djiboua District.

Ferkessédougou Place in Savanes, Ivory Coast

Ferkessédougou is a city in northern Ivory Coast. It is a sub-prefecture of and the seat of Ferkessédougou Department. It is also the seat of Tchologo Region in Savanes District and a commune. Ferkessédougou is the second-most populous city in northern Ivory Coast, after Korhogo.

Guillaume Soro Ivorian politician

Guillaume Kigbafori Soro is an Ivorian politician who was the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire from April 2007 to March 2012. Prior to his service as Prime Minister, Soro led the Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire, and later the New Forces as its Secretary-General. Since March 2012, Soro has been President of the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire.

On 27 November Gbagbo and Soro reached an agreement in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, that the election would be held by the end of June 2008; the electoral commission was to propose the specific date of the election. [12] Gbagbo reiterated on December 19 that the election would be held no later than the end of June 2008, and he said that he would visit all the regions held by the New Forces by March 2008 and would then make a report to the Constitutional Council, which would in turn approve the holding of the election. [13]

Ouagadougou City in Centre Region, Burkina Faso

Ouagadougou, also Vagaga, is the capital of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural, and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 2,200,000 in 2015. The city's name is often shortened to Ouaga. The inhabitants are called ouagalais. The spelling of the name Ouagadougou is derived from the French orthography common in former French African colonies.

Burkina Faso country in Africa

Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa. It covers an area of around 274,200 square kilometres (105,900 sq mi) and is surrounded by six countries: Mali to the north; Niger to the east; Benin to the southeast; Togo and Ghana to the south; and Ivory Coast to the southwest. The July 2018 population estimate by the United Nations was 19,751,651. Burkina Faso is a francophone country, with French as the official language of government and business. Roughly 40% of the population speaks the Mossi language. Formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta (1958–1984), the country was renamed "Burkina Faso" on 4 August 1984 by then-President Thomas Sankara. Its citizens are known as Burkinabé. Its capital is Ouagadougou.

The Constitutional Council is a judicial body in the government of Ivory Coast that is patterned after the Constitutional Council of France. The Council was created by law in 1994 and began its operations in 1995. The seat of the Council is in Abidjan.

French Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner said on 27 January 2008 that the election might be delayed slightly past the end of June deadline due to technical requirements, particularly the need to update voter lists. [14]

Bernard Kouchner French diplomat

Bernard Kouchner is a French politician and physician. He is the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and Médecins du Monde. From 2007 until 2010, he was the French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs in the center-right Fillon government under president Nicolas Sarkozy, although he had been in the past a minister in socialist governments. In 2010, the Jerusalem Post considered Bernard Kouchner the 15th most influential Jew in the world. Since 2015 Kouchner is workstream leader for the AMU, where he contributes his expertise in healthcare.

While Ouattara and Bédié said that full implementation of the peace agreement, including total disarmament of the New Forces, was not necessary prior to the holding of the election, Pascal Affi N'Guessan, the President of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), Gbagbo's party, said that disarmament must be completed before the election. [15]

Pascal Affi NGuessan Ivorian politician

Pascal Affi N'Guessan is an Ivorian politician who is the President of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). He was the Prime Minister of Ivory Coast from 27 October 2000 to 10 February 2003.

Ivorian Popular Front political party

The Ivorian Popular Front is a centre-left, democratic socialist and social democratic political party in Ivory Coast.

By March 2008, the common view among observers was that it would be impossible to hold the election as early as June. Although no leading political figures had yet expressed that view, in March Gbagbo referred to the importance of considering actual conditions and said that it would not mean "death" if the election was not held in June. [11]

On 14 April Government Spokesman Amadou Koné announced that the presidential election would be held on 30 November, thus delaying it by five months. According to Koné, the date was chosen by the CEI, which had presented a report to the government. Koné said that the parliamentary election would be held on a different date. [16] Gbagbo expressed enthusiasm on the occasion, describing it as "a great day for Côte d'Ivoire". According to Soro's spokesman Sindou Méité, a "broad consensus" had been reached by Soro and other leading political figures regarding the date. The PDCI and RDR welcomed the announcement of a date, although they remained cautious; the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire also welcomed it. On the same day, Gbagbo signed a decree outlining the terms of cooperation between the National Institute of Statistics and the French company Sagem, the latter of which is tasked with surveying the population so that voter lists can be updated and new voter cards can be created. [17]

Campaign

The Ivorian Popular Front boycotted the election, [18] accusing the electoral commission of bias in favour of Alassane Ouattara and accusing the army of intimidating FPI supporters during the campaign. [19] The party also complained of having been limited in informing the electorate, with the pro-FPI newspaper Notre Voie having been banned by the government and many of its journalists arrested or jailed. [20]

Gbagbo supporters defying the boycott participated in the election with the coalition National Congress for the Resistance of Democracy. Ouattara's supporters formed the coalition Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace. [21]

Results

Following court challenges to the election of 66 of the MPs, 11 results were declared invalid (five of those were won by the RDR, four by independents, one by the UDPCI). [22]

PartyVotes%Seats
Rally of the Republicans 819,08641.83127
Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire – African Democratic Rally 564,95828.8577
Union for Democracy and Peace in Côte d'Ivoire 61,8983.167
Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace 32,0411.644
Ivorian Workers' Party 17,8890.920
Movement of the Forces of the Future 14,7500.753
Union for Ivory Coast 9,7570.501
Liberty and Democracy for the Republic3,6240.190
UDPCI–MFA–PIT 2,4530.130
United Cape for Democracy and Development1,5510.080
UDPCI–RDR 1,5140.080
Ivorian Ecological Movement1,5110.080
Democratic and Civic Union1,5050.080
Community Revolution Party8900.050
Union for Total Democracy in Ivory Coast8660.040
Democratic and Social Movement7660.040
Ivorian Movement for Renewal and Hope6930.040
Ivorian Party of Farmers5300.030
Union of Peasants, Workers and Employees4990.030
Party for Progress and Socialism4680.020
Union of Democrats for Progress3970.020
National Civic Movement3680.020
Ivorian Conglomerat for the Renewal of Moderates3620.020
National Union for Democracy3140.020
National Democratic Party2670.010
Republican Party2460.010
Union for National Progress1510.010
National Party of Young Democrats1430.010
La Renaissance1230.010
Party of Republican Democrats780.000
Pan-African Democratic Rally760.000
Federation of Families740.000
Union of Liberals570.000
Ivorian Party of Rising to Challenges430.000
People's Socialist Union 390.000
Group for Democracy and Progress360.000
Independents 418,30921.3635
Invalidated/not declared––1
Invalid/blank votes112,461––
Total2,070,793100255
Registered voters/turnout5,664,37736.56–
Source: Abidjan.net, Election Passport

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United Nations Security Council Resolution 1962 United Nations Security Council resolution

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The following lists events that happened during 2010 in Ivory Coast.

The following lists events that happened during 2011 in Ivory Coast.

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Presidential elections were held in Ivory Coast on 25 October 2015. Alassane Ouattara won a second term in a landslide victory over his closest rival Pascal Affi N'Guessan.

References

  1. ↑ Ivory Coast sets parliamentary poll date News 24, 28 September 2011
  2. ↑ "Elections législatives prochaines : Le 11 décembre 2011 pourrait être retenu #CIV2010". News.abidjan.net. Retrieved 2013-04-22.
  3. ↑ "Ivory Coast: Alassane Ouattara recalls army to barracks". BBC News. April 22, 2011.
  4. 1 2 "Ivorian president vows to hold elections as scheduled", Xinhua (People's Daily Online), July 10, 2007.
  5. ↑ "Ivory Coast to hold elections by end of 2007, president says", Associated Press (International Herald Tribune), August 6, 2007.
  6. 1 2 "COTE D'IVOIRE: Observers, opposition wary of Gbagbo’s rush to elections", IRIN, August 7, 2007.
  7. 1 2 "Abidjan polls likely in 2008 - electoral body", AFP (IOL), September 14, 2007.
  8. 1 2 "Cote d'Ivoire likely to hold elections in October 2008", Xinhua (People's Daily Online), September 14, 2007.
  9. ↑ "Ivorian leader calls for early elections", African Press Agency, September 19, 2007.
  10. ↑ "Public hearings begin in Côte d'Ivoire", Panapress (afriquenligne.fr), September 25, 2007.
  11. 1 2 "Côte d'Ivoire: une présidentielle en juin de plus en plus improbable", AFP (Jeuneafrique.com), March 23, 2008 (in French).
  12. ↑ "Ivorian leaders pledge polls in 2008", AFP (IOL), November 27, 2007.
  13. ↑ "La présidentielle ivoirienne aura lieu en juin 2008", Panapress (afriquenligne.fr), December 20, 2007 (in French).
  14. ↑ "Kouchner : la présidentielle en Côte d'Ivoire "peut-être retardée" un peu", AFP (Jeuneafrique.com), January 27, 2008 (in French).
  15. ↑ "Côte d'Ivoire: bilan "mitigé" de l'accord de Ouagadougou, selon le parti de Gbagbo", AFP (Jeuneafrique.com), 25 February 2008.
  16. ↑ "Côte d'Ivoire: le premier tour de la présidentielle fixé au 30 novembre", AFP (Jeuneafrique.com), April 14, 2008 (in French).
  17. ↑ "La Côte d'Ivoire, sous pression, fixe enfin une date pour la présidentielle", AFP (Jeuneafrique.com), April 15, 2008 (in French).
  18. ↑ "Boycott by Gbagbo party clouds Ivory Coast polls". France 24. 9 December 2011. Retrieved 11 December 2011.
  19. ↑ "Low turnout in Ivory Coast parliamentary elections". BBC News . 11 December 2011. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
  20. ↑ "Reconciliation likely to be an unlikely outcome of Ivorian elections". Business Council for Africa. Retrieved 11 December 2011.
  21. ↑ "Q&A: Ivory Coast parliamentary elections". BBC News. December 8, 2011.
  22. ↑ I Coast court annuls 11 election results News 24, 1 February 2012
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