IVORY COAST: Constitutional Council declares incumbent Laurent Gbagbo winner of a presidential poll, overturning provisional results that showed rival Alassane Ouattara as the victor

Record ID: 181704

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Constitutional Council declares incumbent Laurent Gbagbo winner of a presidential poll, overturning provisional results that showed rival Alassane Ouattara as the victor
  • Date: 4th December 2010
  • Summary: MORE OF SUPPORTERS
  • Embargoed: 19th December 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAEVTFI86THX1U3X7TMSUDUCYVD
  • Story Text: Huge uncertainty loomed over Ivory Coast on Friday night (Dec. 3) after the country's constitutional court overturned a provisional election result showing opposition leader Alassane Ouattara as the victor in the country's presidential poll and instead awarded the result to incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.
    The move was implicitly rejected by the United Nations with U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon supporting the result showing Ouattara as winner and congratulating him on his victory and urging incumbent Gbagbo to cooperate in a smooth transition of power.
    The U.N. representative to Ivory Coast Y.J. Choi said at a news conference, "the results confirm again Mr Ouattara as the winner of the second round of presidential elections in Ivory Coast."
    Ouattara's camp had vowed earlier in the day to reject any legal move to overturn the provisional result and had warned of a possible return to civil war.
    Ivory Coast is the world's largest grower of cocoa and the election was meant to reunite it after a 2002-03 civil war that split it in two and slashed investment flows.
    Gbagbo's allies said the provisional results from the Nov. 28 run-off election were marred by mass vote-rigging in the rebel-held north.
    After many delays, the election commission said on Thursday (Dec 2) that former IMF official Ouattara had won the Nov. 28 run-off with 54.1 percent of the vote compared with 45.9 percent for Gbagbo, the result which was overturned by the constitutional court.
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