The president of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) Affi Nguessan said the Constitutional Council has “missed the historic opportunity to mark its independence” by accepting the candidacy of the “manifestly ineligible” incumbent leader, Alassane Ouattara.
“The Constitutional Council today missed the historic opportunity to mark its independence by accepting the candidacy of the incumbent president, who is clearly ineligible and rejecting those of Laurent Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro, deprived of their civil rights for reasons of pure political expediency,” Affi said in a statement.
Despite this decision, he called on Ivoirians to mobilise and rally to “impose on October 31 a victory at the polls,” before adding “will then come the time of rebirth. Together, I know that it is possible.”
“I condemn in the strongest terms the spiral of exclusion in which Cote d’Ivoire is sinking. It appears to be the most successful manifestation of the tyrannical nature of the regime. It is also an appalling crushing machine,” he said.
The leader of the FPI believes that this “finally generates a climate of terror in the face of a future fraught with uncertainty. (Consequently), in Cote d’Ivoire in 2020, the basic rules of the rule of law are not respected.”
“It is urgent to put an end to this policy of ostracism, banishment, excommunication. I have at this moment a special thought for Mr. Gbagbo, victim for nine years of a judicial relentlessness that its perpetrators hoped would be destructive for the man and for his struggle,” he said.
“But his comrades in the struggle, including myself, know that he is unsinkable. Blanked of the most insane charges, he finds himself in a new form of prison, exile. The regime deprives him of the possibility of deciding, in complete freedom and conscience, the nature of the role he aspires to play,” he added.
For him, he should have been able to represent himself and he would then have been at his side, while renewing a promise to him, that of “an immediate return home and a prominent role in the reconciliation of our country.”
“Make no mistake, this permanent climate of insecurity benefits no one. I want to break this curse of a divisive tribalism, and be the candidate of all Ivoirians, the one who gathers all energies,” he said.
The Ivorian Constitutional Council Monday released the list of candidates for the presidential election of October 31, 2020, declaring eligible four candidates out of 44 files, including Alassane Ouattara, Affi N’Guessan, Kouadio Konan Bertin and Henri Konan Bédié.
AP/ls/lb/abj/APA