Ivory Coast’s electoral commission has denied the request of former president Laurent Gbagbo to be reinstated on the voter list, his party announced on Friday.
According to a statement from Gbagbo’s African People’s Party – Ivory Coast (PPA-CI) party, a left-wing pan-African organisation, he submitted his appeal on June 8 after being removed from the electoral roll.
After being cleared by the International Criminal Court of human rights allegations related to post-election violence in 2011, Gbagbo returned to the Ivory Coast in June 2021.
For an alleged “robbery” of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) in 2011, he nevertheless faces a 20-year prison term in Ivory Coast.
Due to this conviction, which was rendered in 2018 while he was detained in The Hague, he lost his civic and political rights, which led to his removal from the voter list.
According to the statement, the former president views his departure as “a political manoeuvre” meant to distance him from politics and weaken his party and its followers ahead of the September municipal elections.
Gbagbo “vigorously refutes” the accusation about stealing funds from the BCEAO, and “intends to fight” the electoral commission’s decision, the statement added.
He asserts that neither he nor anybody else was ever served with a summons to court nor informed of the decision that was made without him. In recent weeks, the political atmosphere in the nation has gotten more hostile.
In order to elect new local and regional leaders before to the 2025 presidential election, almost eight million voters are expected to cast ballots on September 2.