Extracts of the EU report on the Elections released today
http://eueom.eu/files/pressreleases/english/executive-summary-25012010_en.pdf
17. The two ballots, seen as positive overall, took place in a well-ordered and peaceful
atmosphere. Voter turnout was high, particularly during the first ballot. During voting
operations, the EU EOM identified a number of irregularities, although they did not
affect the satisfactory procedure of the ballots nor the determination of the results.
18. The results were consolidated at the different levels of the local ECs and the central
IEC. Since no effective system was in place for the first ballot, operations were
confused and disorganised. Nevertheless, although the consolidation operations of the
second ballot were better organised, the curfew led to delays in the announcement of
the results. The second ballot saw the victory of candidate Ouattara. This result was
not accepted by the outgoing President, who lodged a complaint with the
Constitutional Council which he himself had appointed, and which supported him.
The Council immediately found in favour of Laurent Gbagbo by disqualifying the
results from seven regions in the north of the country where the EU EOM had not
identified any major irregularities likely to cast doubt on the results announced by the
IEC.
19. The Laurent Gbagbo camp has adopted a staggered strategy consisting firstly of
stimulating a climate of tension during the second ballot campaign, destabilising the
electoral environment and creating tensions fed by some of the public media. This
then justified the President's decision to impose a curfew for the second ballot. This
curfew destabilised the procedure still further and led to outbreaks of violence calling
for the implementation of arbitrary measures which bolstered still further the climate
of fear and instability, so that the President was finally able to accuse his opponent of
fraud, justifying the cancellation of some of the electoral results by the Constitutional
Council
20. The decision by the Constitutional Council is highly questionable on four levels. It
breaches the law which establishes the organisation and operation of the Council by
the absence of the decree required for the appointment of the rapporteurs; the Council
has exceeded its powers by cancelling the results in a partisan and discriminatory
fashion by focusing on a region and failing to plan for a new Presidential election; it
is summarily ratifying the facts alleged by the claimant without calling for an enquiry
and without hearing the parties; the reparation ordered, to wit, the complete change of
the results, is out of proportion and constitutes a breach of the right of suffrage.
