Cote d'Ivoire-Election

Cote d'Ivoire's Election Results in Figures

PANA. 24 October, 1995

ABIDJAN, Cote D'Ivoire (PANA) - The incumbent president of Cote d'Ivoire Mr. Henri Konan polled 1,568,185 votes or 96.25 per cent of the ballots cast in Sunday's elections, the country's new agency reported Tuesday.

Bedie was standing for the Cote d'Ivore Democratic Party.

His challenger, Mr. Francis Romain Wodie, of the Ivorian Labour Party (PIT) obtained 61,045 votes, or 3.75 per cent of vote.

The agency reported that 1,672,066 of the 2,979,576 registered voters actually cast ballots. Voter turn-out was officially put at 56.12 per cent.

Some 5,415 of the 15,854 abroad-based registered voters also voted but only 5,026 ballots were valid. Bedie got 4,610 votes (91.72 per cent) of the foreign vote to Wodie's 416 (8.28 per cent).

The highest turn-out rate (99.07 per cent) in Cote D'Ivoire, was recorded in Kouassi Kouassikro, in the country's Midlands, Bedie's birthplace.

The PDCI candidate got his highest score in his native town of Daoukro and in Kouassi kouassikro where he reaped all cast ballots.

Opposition militants opposed to the election prevented the polls from being held normally in 12 localities in Gagnoa District 271 kilometres West of Abidjan. The results from these areas have to be verified by the Constitutional Council.

In the 1990 multiparty election, the then incumbent president Mr Felix Houphouet-Boigny had polled 81 per cent of the total vote compared with over 18 per cent for the Opposition candidate, Mr. Laurent Gbagbo, the leader of the Ivorian Popular Front.

Gbagbo and several other prominent Ivorian opposition leaders did not stand this time claiming that the government had deliberately refused to register all eligible voters.

They also complained against the electoral saying it was tailored to keep away serious challengers to the incumbent president, who constitutionally succeeded the late Houphouet-Boigny after his death on 7 December 1993.

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Cote d'Ivoire's Baoule Still harrassed After Polls

GAGNOA, Cote D'Ivoire (PANA) - Three days after incumbent Ivorian president Henri Konan Bedie won a landslide victory, peasants from his Baoule tribe were on Wednesday still flocking into the western Gagnoa town to escape harrassment in their villages.

The Baoule, who live in various parts of Cote D'Ivoire, had started their exodus two days before Sunday's presidential election.

Bedie who stood for the Cote d'Ivoire Democratic Party (PDCI) massively defeated Mr. franncis Wodie of the Independence and Labour Party (PIT), the only opposition candidate who accepted to stand after other prominent leaders withdrew.

The Ivorian News Agency, AIP, reported that entire families of displaced people have been arriving in groups and are being hosted in a reception centre in Gagnoa.

An Informal Committee of 17 Baoule Executives, all PDCI supporters, has been registering, finding accommodation and providing food to 1895 villagers who have arrived so far in Gagnoa.

The head of the reception committee, Mr. Yao Mialle, also Gagnoa District Director of National Education, told AIP Wednesday that the villagers started coming in last Friday.

Health officials on Wednesday started immunising 300 babies and children, Mialle added.

One of the refugees said he and his family were assaulted by assaillants from an unidentified neighbouring village. These got away a substantial number of items.

Opposition parties grouped under the Republican Front had vowed to disrupt the polls to protest what they saw as unfair electoral procedures.

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