The candidate of the ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) has been declared the winner of the October 31presidential election with 94.27 percent of the vote, according to the provisional results announced on Tuesday by the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) .
Not surprisingly, Alassane Ouattara is the winner of the presidential election. Speaking on Ivorian public broadcaster (RTI), Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, the president of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) informed that 17,601 polling stations had opened out of the 22,381 in the country. In fact, 3,269,813 voters were able to cast their ballot out of the 6,066,441 registered on the electoral roll, representing a turnout of 53.90 percent.
Out of the 3,215,909 valid votes cast, the outgoing president won 3,031,483 votes, or 94.27 percent. Alassane Ouattara is followed by independent candidate Kouadio Konan Bertin (KKB) credited with 64,011 votes, or 1.99 percent. Henri Konan Bedie of the Democratic Party of Cote d´Ivoire (PDCI, opposition), comes 3rd with 53,330 votes, or 1.66 percent. Pascal Affi N’Guessan of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI, opposition) won 31,986 votes, or 0.99 percent.
In total, 53,894 ballots (1.66 percent) are considered invalid, where the number of blank ballots is estimated at 35,099, or 1.9 percent. “In accordance with Article 59 of the Electoral Code, the Independent Electoral Commission will send the Constitutional Council a copy of the counting reports, accompanied by supporting documents within the following three days. It is up to this institution to proclaim the final results,” the president of CEI concluded.
Henri Konan Bedie and Pascal Affi N’Guessan had asked their supporters to block the holding of the vote throughout the country. However, these two figures of the Ivorian political scene had not withdrawn their candidacy, even if they claimed that that of Alassane Ouattara was unconstitutional. In this tense context, the ballot of last Saturday was marred by violence in certain localities of the country..
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