Ivory Coast Election Results Delayed Again
Scott Stearns | Abidjan 01 December 2010
Ivory Coast's electoral commission has again delayed the release of results from Sunday's presidential election with both candidates complaining of voting irregularities.
An electoral commission that is legally required to announce a winner by Midnight has still not released a single ballot from voters in Ivory Coast.
Wednesday's missed deadline was the electoral commission's fourth, none more dramatic than the confrontation at commission headquarters late Tuesday.
As electoral commission spokesman Bamba Yacouba prepared to read the first results from three of Ivory Coast's 18 regions, commission member Damana Adia Pickass tore the papers from his hands, saying they were invalid.
Pickass represents President Laurent Gbagbo's party on the electoral commission. He says the results should be annulled because former prime minister Alassane Ouattara's supporters engaged in electoral fraud.
He says announcing those results would amount to an electoral coup d'etat. He says Gbagbo supporters should stay calm as the president's allies work to publish only credible results.
Ouattara campaign director Marcel Amon Tanoh says the president's interference with the work of the electoral commission shows that he knows he has been beaten.
Tanoh says if Laurent Gbagbo knew he was going to win, he would not have prevented the electoral commission from announcing results on state-run television. Tanoh says doing so shows the president knows he has lost.
Observers from the U.S.-based Carter Center say there were serious electoral crimes during Sunday's vote, including the destruction of election materials and voter intimidation, as well as the theft of ballot boxes. But they say it is too soon to say if those irregularities will affect the overall credibility of the vote.
Carter Center Peace Programs Vice President John Stremlau says it is now up to Mr. Gbagbo and Mr. Ouattara to conclude this electoral process peacefully.
"They must show the statesmanship and civility and commitment to the broader national interests they demonstrated in their debate last Thursday evening," said Stremlau. "And leaders must take responsibility for the actions of their supporters and reign in any tendency toward violence that could undermine the enormous progress made so far."
Gbagbo spokesman Pascal Nguessan says the ruling coalition will not compromise on its insistence that some results be annulled and, in his words, "will fight to the end" to ensure that the only results released are results that it believes to be true.
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