Deleted from the electoral lists for the October 31 poll, Laurent Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro, who had filed an appeal, were rejected.
Guillaume Soro and Laurent Gbagbo in March 2007 in Abidjan.
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Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro saw their appeals contesting their removal from the electoral lists rejected by the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), AFP learned from the CEI and their entourage on Friday.
“The decisions have been posted since the 18th, the CEI did not grant their requests,” Inza Kigbafori told AFP. The CEI communication manager thus referred to the cases of Laurent Gbagbo and Guillaume Soro but also those of the former leader of the Young Patriots, Charles Blé Goudé, and the opponent Akossi Bendjo, who had denounced their absence from the electoral list for the presidential election of October 31. “They have three days to go to court, which has five days to rule on their requests,” he continued, stressing that nearly 400 people had been struck off the lists.
“Anyone sentenced for an offense or a crime to deprivation of their civil rights was removed from the lists during the revision”, explained Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, the president of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) during the presentation of the revision of the electoral list in early August.
“Ill-founded request”
Relatives of the four men, who live abroad, had seized the CEI by noting their absence from the electoral lists posted in the polling stations.
“Our request was rejected for ‘ill-founded request’. We will go to court. This is the only thing left for us to do. The right to vote is an important right, ”Kaweli Ouattara, a close friend of Guillaume Soro and mayor of Ferkessédougou, the stronghold of the former rebel leader, told AFP. The four men were all sentenced by the Ivorian courts.
Acquitted at first instance by the International Criminal Court, Laurent Gbagbo lives in Brussels awaiting a possible appeal but was sentenced by the Ivorian courts to 20 years in prison for the “robbery” of the Central Bank of the States of ‘West Africa during the post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011.
“Attempted insurrection”
The former first lady of Côte d’Ivoire, Simone Gbagbo, asked Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara on August 11 to “grant amnesty” to her husband Laurent. “The arguments used to justify the removal of Laurent Gbagbo’s name from the electoral list are very questionable legal arguments. Moreover, the trial which led to this conviction is itself political and unjustifiable ”, Laurent Gbagbo indicated.
Former Prime Minister, Guillaume Soro, who declared himself a presidential candidate, was sentenced by Ivorian justice to 20 years in prison for “concealment of embezzlement of public funds” and is the subject of proceedings for ” attempted insurrection ”.
Charles Blé Goudé was sentenced in December 2019 to 20 years in prison for crimes committed during the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire. Noël Akossi Bendjo, former mayor of Plateau (business district of Abidjan), close to former Ivorian president Henri Konan Bédié, was sentenced in absentia to twenty years in prison for “embezzlement of public funds”.
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