In Ivory Coast, the presidential election is scheduled for Saturday, October 31st. Yesterday, presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara declared on RFI and France 24 that the vote would take place. Today, opposition platform spokesman Pascal Affi N’Guessan says there will be no election. Former Prime Minister Laurent Gbagbo is interviewed by Christophe Boisbouvier of RFI and Marc Perelman of France 24.
“For us, there are no elections next Saturday,” said Pascal Affi N’Guessan. “We” are former President Henri Konan Bédié and himself. The spokesman for the opposition platform specifies: “We will fight so that it does not happen. There will be roadblocks, polling stations will not be open, the authorities will not be able to deploy dozens of police officers in every polling station, and it will be impossible to organize a calm election worthy of the name that will be recognized by the international community. “
To President Ouattara, who accuses the opposition of being behind the violence that has caused dozens of civilians in two and a half months, Pascal Affi N’Guessan replies: “The deaths started from the moment Alassane Ouattara declared himself a candidate. [le 6 août]. He is the source of instability. He behaves tyrannically and despotically. And it is his militiamen who are attacking. “
Is an Ouattara-Bédié tête-à-tête still possible? “Due to the crisis of confidence, we have gone beyond the tete-a-tete scene, but Henri Konan Bédié accepts a dialogue facilitated by an African personality outside ECOWAS,” the Ivorian opponent replies. From a good source, former President Bédié would have approached the UN to propose as a former head of state from East Africa as a facilitator.
Although Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Laurent Gbagbo are chairing two opposing streams of Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI), the first will believe that his differences with the second will be evened out. “After my house in Bongouanou was destroyed by fire a few days ago, Laurent Gbagbo called me,” reveals Pascal Affi N’Guessan. “At the FPI, he is the leader, but if he decides to promote a new generation of politicians, I am available,” adds the former prime minister, who does not hide his ambition to succeed Laurent Gbagbo as the leader of a reunited FPI, and who says it – like Alassane Ouattara – is in favor of restoring an age limit for candidates for future presidential elections.
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