Cote d’Ivoire rejects election bids of ex-president Gbagbo, ex-rebel leader Soro
Appeals made by former President Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in the country’s October elections were rejected by Ivory Coast election authorities, an official said on Friday.
Gbagbo and Soro had appealed to the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) against a decision to not include them in the electoral lists for the ballot.
“The decisions have been posted since the 18th, the CEI has not granted their requests,” Inza Kigbafori, the CEI communications manager, told AFP.
Gbabgo was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity.
His return to the country would be sensitive before the presidential election and he was urged to throw his hat in the electoral ring by his Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).
Soro, a former rebel leader, has been forced into self-imposed exile in France in the face of a long list of legal problems at home.
He was a leader in a 2002 revolt that sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.
He was once an ally of Ouattara, helping him to power during the post-election crisis in 2010. The two eventually fell out.
