Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara submitted his candidacy for the October election on Monday. Ouattara is running for a third term after weekend protests by opponents who say the constitution restrains him from contesting the upcoming election, reported Reuters.
“We will submit to the verdict of our fellow citizens,” Ouattara said outside the Independent Election Commission (CEI) in Abidjan where he filed his application. “I would like to tell our fellow citizens that I have a vision for our country. A vision of stability, a vision of security, a vision of peace for all Ivorians.”
Ouattara’s announcement to run for a controversial third term has led to clashes between protesters and police that left eight people dead and injured more than 100 wounded.
Earlier this year, Ouattara had announced that he would not run again. But he was officially nominated as the ruling RHDP party’s presidency candidate despite having already served two terms since 2010.
He had planned to nominate Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly as the election candidate, but his presumed successor died of a heart attack in July.
Notably, Ivory Coast’s constitutional court will make the ultimate ruling on his candidacy. Ouattara’s opponents argue that the two-term limit in the constitution bars him from running again, but he has said his first two mandates do not count under the new constitution adopted in 2016.
There was new inter-ethnic violence in Ivory Coast over the weekend in the wake of his party’s inauguration led to at least two death s in Divo, northwest of Abidjan.
Ouattara’s decision to run in the upcoming election has sparked tensions before October 31 vote, which takes place in the shadow cast by violence following 2010’s election that killed around 3,000 people.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the election authorities rejected an appeal by former president Laurent Gbagbo as well as former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in October.
