Ivory Coast: the PPA-CI creates a body to fight against electoral fraud

The party of former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo announced Friday in Abidjan the creation of a body to fight against electoral fraud, four months before the regional and municipal elections and two years before the presidential one.

"Electoral fraud has become so commonplace that it appears to some to be a normal mode of operation," said the person who is to lead the new body, Habiba Touré, a lawyer and former chief of staff of Mr. Gbagbo.

"It was after making this bitter observation that you decided, Mr. President, to create Safe", the Anti-Electoral Fraud Sentinels, she added to Mr. Gbagbo who attended her presentation.

The "mission" of the device will be to "monitor, detect" and "denounce" the "irregularities observed in the electoral process", specified the lawyer, during a meeting of the Party of African Peoples, Côte d'Ivoire ( PPA-CI) by Laurent Gbagbo.

Supported by a central office of about fifteen people, "sentinels" in "our regions and our municipalities" will be "our eyes and ears", she added.

"We are not intended to replace the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI). We do not intervene in the organization of the electoral process", she underlined.

For Ms. Touré, "elections in Africa and in particular here, in Côte d'Ivoire, are often synonymous with tension, crisis, and even war".

"Disputes, pre and post-electoral almost always lead to political crises", which "undermine national cohesion", she said.

Laurent Gbagbo, for his part, mentioned the violence that occurred during the 2010 presidential election, which he lost to current President Alassane Ouattara and the results of which he contested, followed by a post-election crisis that caused around 3,000 dead.

"It's true that in 2010" in northern Côte d'Ivoire, "it was even rude what they (Mr. Ouattara's supporters) did. Pursue women, get people out of a polling station ,” he said.