Observers give Ivory Coast vote endorsement, turnout disputed

Numerous computer tablets used to verify voters’ identities had also failed. In that election, Ouattara defeated incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo who refused to leave office, sparking the worst fighting the country had experienced since independence from France in 1960.

Election observers and diplomats said Sunday’s vote, which is crucial to reassuring investors and turning the page on Côte d’Ivoire’s violent political past, was held without major incident.

While the risk of poll violence was considered low, tens of thousands of soldiers, police and gendarmes were deployed across the country to secure the election, in which voters faced a choice of seven candidates for the presidency.

“I want a lasting peace and work for my children”, said Bintou Coulibaly, a trader casting her ballot in a neighbourhood of the commercial capital, Abidjan.

The late arrival of materials led the Independent Elections Commission (CEI) to extend voting in a few polling stations by two hours on Sunday.

And with the Ivorian constitution providing that results be declared after 48 hours of voting, all eyes are now on the electoral commission to see who wins the election.

Gbagbo is now detained at the worldwide Criminal Court in the Hague, facing charges of “crimes against humanity”.

Ivory Coast voters headed to the polls Sunday hoping to put the past behind them as the West African nation held its first presidential election since a disputed vote five years ago triggered violence that killed more than 3,000 people.

Leaders of a break-away faction of Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) have called for a boycott of the polls, and their strongholds in the west and in certain parts of Abidjan are potential flashpoints for violence.

Turnout critical: Voter turnout will be critical to legitimising Ouattara’s mandate if he wins as expected.

The FPI hardliners have been joined by three candidates, including former Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, who pulled out of the vote, saying the process was stacked in Ouattara’s favour. “The people yesterday instead followed the call of authorities to maintain calm, even though the turnout was different from polling station to polling station and many citizens after voting closed themselves in their homes from fear”.

“My president is in prison”, said Yves Titiro, a cocoa farmer in the village of Zebizekou, near Gagnoa. “In the north there will be an election, but it has nothing to do with us here”.

With the country now riding high on an economic boom and growth at around nine percent, Ouattara is hoping for a first-round victory over his six challengers.

Of the six candidates seeking to unseat him, FPI president Pascal Affi N’Guessan, who is leading his party’s moderates, is expected to be his chief challenger. He has also criticised Ouattara for failing to foster post-war reconciliation.

People wait for their turn to vote in the presidential election at a polling station as voting equipment arrives in Gagnoa, in western Ivory Coast, October 25, 2015.