Ivory Coast voters approve new constitution, await presidential election

A worker sweeps the floor in front of a wall showing the vote tally inside a polling facility in Abidjan on Monday

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Ivory Coast, the world's top cocoa producer, has approved a new constitution, clearing the way for a high-stakes presidential election to end military rule, preliminary results showed on Tuesday.

Interior Minister Colonel Mouassi Grena said that with results in from all the 58 departments or administrative areas, up to 90 percent of those who voted had approved the constitution and an accompanying electoral code.

He said over half of those registered to vote had taken part in Sunday's referendum, which took place under an ill-defined state of emergency and ran into a second day on Monday following organizational chaos at certain polling stations.

"We are now at 55 percent," he told Reuters correspondent Anne Boher, prior to last-minute checks and a more formal announcement of the results later in the morning.

Military ruler General Robert Guei, put in power by soldiers who staged the West African nation's first coup in December, has called a presidential election for September 17.

Many Ivorians think that although he said initially that he had no interest in power, he now plans to run himself.

The constitution commits the National Public Salvation Committee (CNSP) junta to handing power to an elected civilian head of state and parliament no later than six months after the formal proclamation of the text.

Guei has called a parliamentary election for October 29.

The fine print of the constitution offers an amnesty to the soldiers who staged the coup and the junta.

But debate on the draft focused almost exclusively on eligibility conditions for presidential candidates, an issue that triggered a bitter nationality debate that has split the country along ethnic lines.

All presidential candidates must be Ivorian nationals born of parents who are themselves both Ivorian. The constitution rules out anyone who has ever used another nationality.

Former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, described by opponents as a national of neighboring Burkina Faso, is the man at the eye of the nationality storm.

But his Rally of the Republicans (RDR) party, which draws its support from the Muslim north, called for a Yes vote, and he says he can prove he is Ivorian and is confident he can meet the eligibility conditions.

The supreme court is to rule on his application and that of other would-be candidates by September 2.

The referendum turnout was at the upper end of what the West African nation has seen in elections since independence from France in 1960.

Politicians and voters alike said they were keen to turn the page as quickly as possible on the coup and an unsettling army pay mutiny on July 4 and 5, when soldiers took to the streets, firing in the air, hijacking cars and occasionally looting.

"If you look at the figures since 1945, (the turnout) has never topped 60 percent," Socialist leader Laurent Gbagbo, the man who spearheaded the fight for multiparty politics in 1990, said on Monday.

"In general the turnout varies between 40 and 60 percent."

The new constitution and electoral code lower the voting age from 21 to 18, put an independent electoral commission in charge of post-transition elections and introduce the single ballot paper -- more discreet than the old system of multiple slips.

The constitution also abolishes the death penalty, which has remained on the statute book since independence but has never been carried out.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Ivory Coast votes on new constitution
July 23, 2000
Ivory Coast junta takes emergency measures ahead of referendum
July 22, 2000

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