The former house speaker of Cote d’Ivoire’s National Assembly, Guillaume Soro, is “vigorously contesting” the rejection of his candidacy for the October 31 presidential election in Cote d’Ivoire.
This comes after the Constitutional Council rejected his file, declaring four candidates eligible for the Ivorian presidential election and forty other inadmissible candidacies.
“I vigorously contest the unfair and unfounded decision taken on Monday, September 14, 2020 by the Constitutional Council,” Mr. Guillaume Soro said on his social media platforms. According to the decision of the Constitutional Council, as he is not on the electoral roll due to his conviction, his file is inadmissible.
He “considers that it is an iniquitous decision, politically motivated, legally flawed and is part of a logic of annihilation of democracy and the rule of law.”
According to him, the Constitutional Council and its president Mamadou Koné “has just endorsed and this is no surprise to the forfeiture and perjury of Mr. Alassane Ouattara enshrining the submission of the right to justice to the rule of RHDP and its president.
“We cannot accept this coup, which was passed by the Constitutional Council. I announce that we are embarking on a new stage in our country,” he said, adding: “it will be bitter but we will win it without doubt.”
Mr. Soro, in a request, argued that “the President of the Republic, head of the executive branch, has interfered in the area of competence of the legislature, which alone has the power to legislate in electoral matters, and therefore violated the Constitution which provides for the separation of powers.”
The candidacies of former President Laurent Gbagbo as well as those of major political figures such as Mabri Toikeusse, Mamadou Koulibaly, Marcel Amon-Tanoh, Gnamien Konan were rejected for non-compliance with the electoral code.
AP/ls/lb/abj/APA