Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara reelected to fourth term, early results show

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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara was reelected to a fourth term in an election marked by low turnout and empty streets in the economic capital of Abidjan, provisional results showed Monday.

Ouattara, 83, who first came to power in the West African nation in 2011, won 89.7% of the vote, Electoral Commission head Ibrahime Kuibiert Coulibaly said Monday.

Jean-Louis Billon, a former commerce minister from one of Ivory Coast’s richest families, came in a distant second with 3% of the vote. Simone Gbagbo, a former first lady, came in third with 2.4%, under the provision results.

Final results are expected by early November, though they could be announced sooner. Some 8.5 million people were registered to vote. Voter turnout was around 50%.

Billon had already congratulated Ouattara on Sunday evening, based on early results.

Gbabgo acknowledged the results on Monday, but said they “do not accurately reflect the popular will” because of “an unfair and locked-down electoral system” and “a divided opposition, part of which has created a climate of fear and violence.”

Ouattara first came to power after winning a disputed election in late 2010 against his predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo. Deadly unrest surrounding that election — the country's first in a decade — left at least 3,000 people dead before an internationally backed Ouattara, backed by U.N. and French forces, assumed power.

Since then, his supporters have credited him with restoring the conflict-ravaged economy in the world's largest cocoa producer, while critics have accused him of tightening his grip on power.

Ouattara was challenged by what experts considered a weakened opposition after the exclusion of major candidates, Tidjane Thiam and Laurent Gbagbo, from the polls.

“What happened was not a real election,” Thiam said in a statement on social media on Monday, adding that the country was “at an impasse and only dialogue can help us get out of it.”

“With his main rivals sidelined, Ouattara secured a fourth term in office due to his strong influence over state institutions, and leading role in the country’s post-civil war reconstruction,” Mucahid Durmaz, senior analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, global risk consultancy, told The Associated Press.

With a two-term limit, Ouattara oversaw a referendum that changed the Ivorian constitution in 2016, during his second term. In 2020, he said that the constitution reset his time in office to zero, a move that his opponents rejected at the time. They boycotted that year's election, and he won with more than 90% of the votes.

“Many in the country and the wider region are likely to view his fourth term as reinforcing the practice of constitutional engineering and deepening democratic decline in West Africa,” Durmaz said.

Ouattara's reelection is the latest example of aging men continuing to hold power in Africa, which boasts the youngest population in the world. Cameroon’s Paul Biya, 92, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni, 81, and Equatorial Guinea’s Teodoro Mbasogo, 83, are some other older African leaders still in power.

Ouattara has overseen an economic revival since the civil war, achieving an annual growth rate of 6% backed by a boom in cocoa. However, 37.5% of the country’s 30 million people still live in poverty, and jobs are scarce for young people.

He also has sparred with the junta-led states of Sahelian countries, Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso over Ouattara’s alleged support for France, which the juntas have blamed for a deterioration in security in the region.