20111211 Press TV Ivory Coast is preparing for parliamentary elections in what seems to be a reminder of the tense run-up to the last year's presidential poll that plunged the country into months of deadly violence.
The UN tanks patrolled Ivory Coast's commercial capital Abidjan on Saturday amid fears that boycott of the vote and violence could mar the Sunday electoral event, the Associated Press reported.
Officials hope that the elections can bring stability to Ivory Coast and usher the African nation into a period of economic growth.
Ivory Coast's former strongman, Laurent Gbagbo, was spirited away to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, the Netherlands, last week. Gbagbo faces accusations that his forces committed murder and rape after he refused to accept his loss to the current President Alassane Ouattara in the 2010 presidential election and nearly dragged the country into civil war in a bid to retain power.
Gbagbo had been under house arrest in the tiny village of Korhogo, which is located 482 kilometers (300 miles) north of Abidjan, since being ousted by Ouattara forces, backed by UN and French troops and helicopters, last April.
At least 3,000 people were killed in Ivory Coast last year and more than 500,000 others were displaced as a result of the power struggle between forces loyal to Gbagbo and Ouattara, according to the United Nations.
Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front party, now the opposition, has vowed to boycott the election. It claims the electoral commission is loyal to the country's governing Rally of the Republicans party and that the electorate would manipulate the poll results.
At least 25,000 Ivorian policemen and military soldiers will guard the poll.
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