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Ivory Coast junta leader declares himself winner

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October 25, 2000 

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) - Junta leader Gen. Robert Guei dissolved the commission overseeing Ivory Coast's presidential elections and declared himself the winner, a senior Interior Ministry official said Tuesday.

Daniel Bamba Sheik, director-general of the Interior Ministry's territorial administration department, said Guei took 52.72 percent of Sunday's vote compared with 41.02 for opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo.

Gbagbo's party had earlier claimed the opposition leader had won, and his aides said party supporters planned to march in protest later Tuesday through Abidjan, the commercial capital.

Sunday's vote was to decide the future of this West African country, which saw its reputation as a bastion of regional calm destroyed in the December coup d'etat that brought Guei to power.

Bamba Sheik blamed massive fraud and the incompetence of electoral officials for the decision to disband the commission overseeing the vote.

He accused several parties, including Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front, of busing voters from Abidjan to villages in the interior in order to vote twice.

Bamba Sheik claimed only 3.6 million voters had been registered for the vote, down from the 5.5 million announced by the commission before the ballot. Some 153,000 votes were nullified, he added.

Electoral commission officials were not immediately available for comment and those seen earlier in the day were escorted by armed security personnel and not allowed to talk to journalists.

Following Tuesday's announcement, the streets of downtown Abidjan were virtually empty except for security personnel wearing riot gear.

The vote was controversial from the beginning. The nation's two largest political parties boycotted the ballot after their leaders were barred from running by the Supreme Court. Gbagbo was the only political heavyweight allowed to run against the junta leader.

Preliminary results released around midday Monday - reflecting just a fraction of the vote - showed Gbagbo with an edge over Guei. Since then, however, vote counting appeared to have stopped, European Union officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Before counting was interrupted, Gbagbo had 51.35 percent of the 126,683 ballots counted, compared to 40.40 percent for Guei, national electoral commission president Honore Guie said Monday.

Gbagbo's party claimed its own count showed it leading with 61 percent to 25 percent for Guei with 1.1 million votes counted.

A representative of Gbagbo's party had earlier asked Guei to accept defeat.

"In developed countries, the loser recognizes his defeat ... even when the official results are not completely available," said Gbagbo's campaign manager, Afi Nguessan.

In an interview broadcast on Europe 1 radio, Gbagbo urged Guei to "hand over power" and said army soldiers were also advising the military ruler to do so.

However, some soldiers said Guei had given unspecified orders to troops late Monday to "calm the population."

On Monday, soldiers deployed throughout Abidjan after groups of jubilant Gbagbo (pronounced BAHG-bo) supporters paraded through the streets in parts of Abidjan and other cities. Soldiers used tear gas to break up a rally of Gbagbo demonstrators.

A senior junta member, Communications Minister Henri Cesar Sama, warned Gbagbo's supporters to cease their celebrations, calling the jubilation "premature."

The United Nations, the Organization of African Unity, the European Union and countries such as the United States and Canada withdrew election observers or funding, saying the exclusion of major opponents made a free and fair election impossible.