IVORY COAST-ELECTION/OPPOSITION Ivory Coast opposition leader woos Gbagbo backers before election

Record ID: 135081

  • Title: IVORY COAST-ELECTION/OPPOSITION Ivory Coast opposition leader woos Gbagbo backers before election
  • Date: 11th October 2015
  • Summary: SUPPORTER DANCING WITH A BIG POSTER OF N'GUESSAN VARIOUS OF N'GUESSAN POSTER
  • Embargoed: 26th October 2015 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA697P8UQ3B6LGFRP2GOPA90YP8
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The head of ex-Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo's party sought on Saturday (October 10) to win over the jailed politician's grassroots supporters and overcome a damaging internal rift as he kicked off his campaign ahead of an Oct. 25 election.
    Pascal Affi N'Guessan chose Gagnoa, a city in the heart of the country's cocoa belt and a bastion of support for Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), to launch his bid to unseat President Alassane Ouattara.
    Aided by a booming economy, Ouattara is heavily favoured to win re-election in a poll that he hopes will turn the page on years of turmoil and reassure investors attracted by the West African nation's rapid post-war revival.
    The FPI has boycotted parliamentary and local elections since 2010, demanding that Gbagbo be freed as a pre-condition of their return to the political mainstream.
    N'Guessan has argued winning back power is the only way to eventually secure Gbagbo's release.
    "All those who want Laurent Gbagbo to be freed, you should know that the only choice you have is to vote for Affi N'guessan, the candidate for change, on October 25th. If you want Ble Goude to be freed, vote for Affi on October 25th. If you don't vote for Affi on October 25th, then it means that you don't want Ouattara to go and you don't want Gbagbo to be freed," N'Guessan told a crowd of over a thousand supporters gathered at Gagnoa's Place Laurent Gbagbo.
    Gbagbo's refusal to acknowledge Ouattara's victory in the country's last presidential election in 2010 sparked a brief civil war that killed over 3,000 people. He is now awaiting trial before the International Criminal Court charged with crimes against humanity.
    Despite Ivory Coast's economy growing at a rate of 9 percent annually for the past three years, political reconciliation has moved at a crawl. The FPI says hundreds of Gbagbo supporters remain political prisoners, while tens of thousands of people displaced by the war live as refugees in neighbouring countries.
    "The first project is to that of national peace and reconciliation, and modernising state institutions. The political crisis has thrown our state institutions into chaos and plunged our country into despair. We need peace today. The political crisis caused a social divide, and Ouattara's politics have only made things worse. We need to rebuild all of that," N'Guessan said.
    N'Guessan has argued that the FPI, the country's main opposition force, risks becoming irrelevant if it does not contest the presidential vote.
    N'Guessan's decision to take part in this month's poll has put him at odds with party hardliners, who have portrayed him as a traitor and are calling for a poll boycott.
    But for some, he represents the only hope of reuniting the FPI.
    "When you talk about freeing Laurent Gbagbo in order to have peace in Ivory Coast, and I don't think that Laurent Gbagbo being at the International Criminal Court (ICC) has anything to do with the elections or where the country is at the moment. Because it's all in God's plan. I can't say that voting for Affi N'guessan or Laurent Gbagbo doesn't matter, because all we want is peace," said N'Guessan supporter, Monique Delaou.
    Given the FPI's current divisions, analysts view a victory by N'Guessan as a long-shot. However, they say a united party could do well in parliamentary polls expected next year, breaking a ruling coalition stranglehold on the legislature.
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