Ivory Coast’s top opposition leader Henri Konan Bedie on Sunday called for nationwide civil disobedience to protest against President Alassane Ouattara who is seeking a third term in the October elections, which his critics claim is unconstitutional, reported Reuters.
Bedie is one of the four candidates who have been cleared by Ivory Coast’s Constitutional Council to contest in the vote alongside President Ouattara and two other candidates. The electoral commission rejected 40 other candidate bids. Among those excluded are two leading opposition figures, former president Laurent Gbagbo, 75, and former prime minister and onetime rebel leader Guillaume Soro, 47.
“In the face of abuse of authority, there is only one watchword: civil disobedience,” he said at a meeting of the country’s main opposition parties.
“We are here to express our fierce opposition to this violation of the constitution,” added Bedie, the flagbearer of the Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI).
However, the opposition leader did not elaborate on the form the civil disobedience should take and there was no call for an opposition boycott of the October 31 presidential election.
The opposition claims that Ouattara, who was elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2015, is violating the constitution by seeking a third term. The 78-year old president says a constitutional change means his two-term limit has been reset.
They are also demanding an audit of the country’s electoral list of voters, and the return of political exiles led by Gbagbo and former Prime Minister Soro.
More than a dozen people have been killed since anti-Ouattara riots broke out last month after he declared he would run following the sudden death of his handpicked successor in July. He had planned to nominate Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly as the election candidate, but Coulibaly died of a heart attack in July.
Some political observers fear that the protests might mark a return to the levels of violence that claimed 3,000 lives following the 2010 presidential vote.
