20101129
africanews

Two people were killed during Ivory Coast second round presidential run-off held on Sunday, bringing the number of deaths in the days leading to the polls to six, after three opposition rioters lost their lives on Saturday in Abidjan and one pro-incumbent president militant was reported killed in the hinterland.

However, independent observers said the vote was generally peaceful but that turnout was below the 82% reached in the first round, probably due to the tense atmosphere prior the exercise, even when a cordial live TV debate between the two candidates on list, incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and ex-Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, was judged to be reassuring by many.

Ouattara, endorsed by former President Henri Konan Bédié who finished third with 25% in the first round, denounced acts of intimidation on his voters by Gbagbo’s supporters, whom he said were hindering all those suspected to vote for him from having access to voting centres in parts of Abidjan and in the western region of the country.

Gbagbo’s camp reported that some of its representatives at voting centres in the rebel-held north, a natural bastion of Ouattara, were molested by unidentified armed men.

Injured

State TV showed footages of smashed windscreens of parked vehicles and injured individuals in the northern region.

The two deaths reported by an official of the Interior Ministry occurred in Daloa in the western region, where a high number of Gbagbo’s voters hail from. Traditional hunters commonly called Dozo, emerged from nowhere and fired at a crowd in front of a voting centre killing a policeman and a civilian on the spot.

Eyewitnesses said the assailants were reacting against the attitude of barring some northern voters from exercising their civic right by pro-Gbagbo supporters.

A dusk-till-dawn curfew, which began on Saturday, will run till Thursday morning. The government says it is meant to dissuade post-electoral troublemakers, but the opposition says Gbagbo’s party could carry out fraudulent acts during the night’s calmness.

Results were been expected as from late Sunday night, but the election commission (CEI) has three days maximum to deliver provisional results.

The European Union monitoring team has suggested the CEI publish the results gradually to avoid “tension and speculations” during the long wait.