Ivory Coast polls result reversed

Angry youths took to the streets in Ivory Coast’s main city Abidjan, burning tyres, hurling chunks of concrete and tearing down billboards after election results were reversed.

Less than an hour before, the head of the country’s constitutional council announced that incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo had won the contested election.

That contradicts and reverses Thursday’s declaration by the country’s election chief, who said opposition leader Alassane Ouattara had won. As soon as the new results were broadcast, shops closed and market women rushed to fold up their goods.

The African Union and the White House have said the earlier results giving victory to Ouattara are credible and should be honoured.

Ivory Coast’s presidential election was meant to restore stability in the West African nation after a 2002-2003 civil war destroyed the economy of one of the most affluent countries on the continent. Instead the poll is now casting a growing shadow. If Gbagbo refuses to step down, many fear the world’s top cocoa producer could spiral into violence again.

The results announced on state television by constitutional council head Paul Yao N’Dre cancelled the votes from seven of the country’s 19 voting districts, all opposition strongholds where the ruling party claims the vote was marred by violence and intimidation.

“The irregularities are of such a nature that they invalidate the vote (in those districts),” said N’Dre, who is also a senior member of Gbagbo’s party.

Erasing those districts erased a significant share of opposition leader Alassane Ouattara’s margin, resulting in a victory for Gbagbo. Gbagbo’s five-year mandate officially expired in 2005. For five years he has repeatedly cancelled the date for this election, claiming first that the country was too volatile and that security could not be assured and later over technicalities of the poll.

The United States has urged the parties to accept the election commission’s results showing Ouattara had won. “Credible, accredited electoral observers have characterised the balloting as free and fair, and no party should be allowed to obstruct further the electoral process,” US National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said in a statement.

The African Union said that Thursday’s results were satisfactory and asked the country’s leaders to put the interest of Ivory Coast first, also known as Cote d’Ivoire in French. “Any other approach risks plunging Cote d’Ivoire into a crisis with incalculable consequences for the country, as well as for the region and the continent as a whole,” the AU said in a statement.