The institutional crisis has run a little deeper in Côte d’Ivoire with the decision of the second deputy chair of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), Alain Dogou, of the FPI, to suspend its activities within the central body of the institution. It is the same for Yapi Yapo Daudet (LMP, League for the Movement for Progress), representative of the opposition within the CEI Central Commission.
It’s a new battle for CEI who sees its legitimacy crumble even more and its function seizes upon. Of the four seats allocated to the opposition in the central body, three are empty. The PDCI remained vacant when the representative refused to take the oath at the last second in mid-September, and now they are from the AFD, of which the FPI is a part, and the LMP left since Wednesday.
The formations that are close to the edge of the FPI recognized by the authorities require a reorganization of the CEI before any participation in the activities of the institution responsible for the organization and control of the electoral process. On the opposition side, only Henriette Lagou Adjoua, proposed by the RPC-paix party, is still an active member of the Central Committee.
“Election masked“
The AFD and LMD groups led, respectively by Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Kabran Appia, also announced the suspension, until further notice, of the activities of their representatives in the CIS local commissions. In a joint statement, they called on the government to “get out of the fetishism of the dates” and thus call for the postponement of the vote, the time to reform the CEI, which they consider biased. The two representatives of these coalitions also evoke an “election masquerade” in which they do not want “to be an accomplice”.
Once again, they call on the government and the President of the Republic to sit down around the table “to agree on the necessary reforms”. The opening of the dialogue is still ruled out at this stage by the authorities, who want to stick to the date of October 31 for the first round of presidential elections.
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