This article is part of a series on the politics and government of Ivory Coast |
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Parliamentary elections were held in Ivory Coast on 18 December 2016. [1] The new constitution, which was approved in a referendum in October, reduced the term for the 255 members of the National Assembly from five to four years.
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.
The Constitution of Ivory Coast was approved by referendum on October 30, 2016 and officially adopted on November 8, 2016.
The presidential coalition, the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (composed of the Rally of the Republicans, the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire – African Democratic Rally and some minor parties) won more than the half the seats in the National Assembly.
The Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace is a political alliance in Ivory Coast.
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.
The Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire — African Democratic Rally is a political party in Côte d'Ivoire.
The 255 members of the National Assembly were elected from 169 single-member constituencies and 36 multi-member constituencies with between two and six seats. [2] [3] In single-member constituencies voters cast a vote for one candidate who is elected by first-past-the-post voting; whereas in multi-member constituencies candidates were elected by plurality-at-large voting, where voters cast a single vote for a closed list, with the list receiving the most votes winning all seats in the constituency. [4]
The National Assembly is lower house of the Parliament of Ivory Coast since November 2016. From 1960 to 2016, The National Assembly was Ivory Coast's unicameral legislative body. Evolved from semi-representative bodies of the French Colonial period, the first National Assembly was constituted on 27 November 1960 with 70 elected members (députés) in accordance with the Constitution of 31 October 1960, which created the First Republic.
A first-past-the-post electoral system is one in which voters indicate on a ballot the candidate of their choice, and the candidate who receives the most votes wins. This is sometimes described as winner takes all. First-past-the-post voting is a plurality voting method. FPTP is a common, but not universal, feature of electoral systems with single-member electoral divisions, and is practiced in close to one third of countries. Notable examples include Canada, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as most of their current or former colonies and protectorates.
Plurality-at-large voting, also known as block vote or multiple non-transferable vote (MNTV), is a non-proportional voting system for electing several representatives from a single multimember electoral district using a series of check boxes and tallying votes similar to a plurality election. Multiple winners are elected simultaneously to serve the district. Block voting is not a system for obtaining proportional representation; instead the usual result is that where the candidates divide into definitive parties the most popular party in the district sees its full slate of candidates elected, resulting in a landslide.
A total of 1,336 candidates contested the elections, 597 representing 38 political parties and 739 as independents. [5] The Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace had the most candidates (248), with the Ivorian Popular Front (which had boycotted the 2011 elections) the only other party to run candidates in more than half of constituencies, having nominated 187 candidates. [5] Sixteen parties contested only one seat. [5]
The Ivorian Popular Front is a centre-left, democratic socialist and social democratic political party in Ivory Coast.
In constituency 34 there was a tie between two candidates, with the independent candidate Léonard Guéi Desseloue and Marius Sarr Bohe (RHDP) both receiving 1,231 votes. A second round of voting took place within 15 days. [6] Léonard Sahé won the last constituency achieving 52.69% while Marius Sarr got 46.31%. [7]
Party | Votes | % | Seats | +/– |
---|---|---|---|---|
Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace | 1,019,057 | 50.26 | 167 | –40 |
Ivorian Popular Front | 118,130 | 5.83 | 3 | New |
Union for Democracy and Peace in Côte d'Ivoire | 60,566 | 2.99 | 6 | –1 |
Union for Ivory Coast | 20,806 | 1.03 | 3 | +2 |
Liberty and Democracy for the Republic | 3,050 | 0.15 | 0 | 0 |
Rally for Peace, Progress and Sharing | 2,628 | 0.13 | 0 | New |
United Cape for Democracy and Development | 2,513 | 0.12 | 0 | 0 |
Alliance of Democratic Forces | 2,308 | 0.11 | 0 | New |
Union of Democrats for Progress | 2,235 | 0.11 | 0 | New |
Democratic and Civic Union | 2,207 | 0.11 | 0 | 0 |
Democratic and Social Movement | 1,576 | 0.08 | 0 | 0 |
Renewal for Peace and Agreement | 1,303 | 0.06 | 0 | New |
Collective of Democratic Ivorians | 1,136 | 0.06 | 0 | New |
Congress for Ivorian Renewal | 1,101 | 0.05 | 0 | New |
Union for Total Democracy in Ivory Coast | 984 | 0.05 | 0 | 0 |
People's Party of Social Democrats | 861 | 0.04 | 0 | New |
Republican Union for Democracy | 848 | 0.04 | 0 | New |
Union for Progress | 648 | 0.03 | 0 | New |
Pan-African Democratic Rally | 644 | 0.03 | 0 | 0 |
National Democratic and Reformist Front | 596 | 0.03 | 0 | New |
Ivorian Party of Greens | 466 | 0.02 | 0 | New |
National Civic Movement | 444 | 0.02 | 0 | 0 |
Congress of People for Development and Freedom | 440 | 0.02 | 0 | New |
Union for National Progress | 319 | 0.02 | 0 | 0 |
People's Socialist Union | 306 | 0.02 | 0 | 0 |
Democracy for Freedom and Cohesion | 233 | 0.01 | 0 | New |
Ivorian Party of Rising to Challenges | 201 | 0.01 | 0 | 0 |
Party of Unity and Progress of Ivory Coast | 184 | 0.01 | 0 | New |
Revolutionary Communist Party of Côte d'Ivoire | 178 | 0.01 | 0 | 0 |
Congress for Ivorian Renewal–Panafrican | 177 | 0.01 | 0 | New |
Ivorian Ecological Movement | 163 | 0.01 | 0 | 0 |
Union of Popular Masses | 134 | 0.01 | 0 | New |
Republican Party of Ivory Coast | 106 | 0.01 | 0 | 0 |
Union for Development and Freedoms | 101 | 0.00 | 0 | New |
National Alliance of Ivory Coast | 93 | 0.00 | 0 | New |
Ivorian Party of Farmers | 40 | 0.00 | 0 | 0 |
Progressive Movement of Ivory Coast | 30 | 0.00 | 0 | New |
La Renaissance | 20 | 0.00 | 0 | 0 |
Independents | 780,629 | 38.50 | 76 | +41 |
Invalid/blank votes | 110,575 | – | – | – |
Total | 2,138,036 | 100 | 255 | 0 |
Registered voters/turnout | 6,268,113 | 34.11 | – | – |
Source: CEI |
When the National Assembly began meeting for the new parliamentary term, Guillaume Soro, an RHDP deputy, was re-elected as President of the National Assembly on 9 January 2017. He received 230 votes from the 252 deputies present; Evariste Méambly, an independent deputy, received 12 votes, and there were 10 spoilt votes. [8]
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.
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