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Ivory Coast Election Results Contested; Military Closes Border

Scott Stearns | Abidjan 03 December 2010

Ivory Coast's borders are closed and foreign news broadcasts suspended as the president challenges election results that show him losing to a former prime minister.

Just as one wait ends for voters in Ivory Coast, another tense wait begins.

After finally hearing from the electoral commission that opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara defeated incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, Ivorians must now wait for the constitutional council to decide whether to uphold those results.

Because the commission missed its deadline for declaring a provisional winner, constitutional council chief Paul Yao N'Dre says the commission had no authority to declare Mr. Ouattara the winner. N'Dre says the commission no longer has any authority to announce anything, and only the constitutional council can now determine the vote's legitimacy.

The electoral crisis has brought calls from the European Union, the United Nations, the United States, France, and the Economic Community of West African States to resolve the dispute quickly and transparently.

N'Dre says Ivorians will decide for themselves the outcome of this vote.

N'Dre says no sub-regional organization like the Economic Community of West African States has the ability to give presidential election results for Ivory Coast. Only the constitutional council can do that, he says, and will do so, definitively, very soon.

The Gbagbo campaign wants N'Dre's constitutional council to annul results from northern provinces where they say Ouattara supporters engaged in fraud. The Ouattara campaign says the president knows he has lost and is trying to hold on to power by force.

Mr. Ouattara again urged President Gbagbo to honor their pre-election pledge to respect the outcome of the vote, calling for a government of national unity after a divisive campaign.

Mr. Ouattara repeated his promise to form a unity government that unites the best of political parties and civil society in Ivory Coast.

Despite international support for his provisional win, Mr. Ouattara is still a long way from becoming president. Constitutional council president N'Dre is a long-time ally of President Gbagbo who quickly dismissed opposition complaints about the first round of voting. If N'Dre's council rejects nearly 400,000 votes, that will make President Gbagbo the winner.