presidential

Let's go to the submission of candidacies for the presidential election on November 22nd. The declared candidates have until 2 October to present themselves to the Independent National Electoral Commission (Céni) with their case file. However, some candidates face conditions for running that they consider "discriminatory". It is the school and university board adviser Issa Sawadogo, independent graduate, who was received first with her case file. An incomplete file because it was unable to collect either the sum of…

Ivory Coast Constitutional Court ruled last week that only four out of 44 presidential hopefuls would be allowed to run in the country's presidential election. Because they face criminal convictions, former President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro, both giants of Ivorian politics, were among those prevented from running. Most of the others whose candidates were deemed invalid had failed to garner sufficient public support - a new electoral reform required candidates to request signatures from at…

Ivory Coast's head of state, Alassane Ouattara, has blown up two rivals' attempt to challenge next month's presidential election as "provocation", saying one of them is behind bars. In an interview published Thursday by the French magazine Paris Match, the 78-year-old sitting fired a verbal breadth against former President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro. Both men live outside the country, but retain strong support at home, in a country still scarred by a post-election conflict that claimed more…