Ivory Coast PM Tries to Ease Concern Over Vote Count
26 October 2010
An unidentified man reacts to a campaign poster for incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, as presidential campaigning kicked off 15 Oct 2010 in Abidjan
With just five days to go before Ivory Coast's long-delayed presidential election, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro wants to reassure voters that their ballots will be counted properly.
Less than one week ago, the country's electoral commission announced that all votes would be counted by hand as results move from prefecture to communal to department to regional levels, until the final candidate totals are announced in Abidjan.
The prime minister's office then announced it is hiring a local company to count those votes electronically. The Information Technology Localization and Security Company (SILS Tehnologie) supervised Ivorian vote counting in 2007.
But the company's involvement in this election has drawn complaints from some opposition candidates and some members of the electoral commission because it is a subsidiary of a firm led by Ahoua Don Mello, a close associate of President Laurent Gbagbo, who is running for re-election.
Mello spoke at a campaign event for President Gbagbo Friday saying a manual count of votes would "leave the door open for every possible adventure." If the country wants to avoid drama, Mello says, it should avoid counting the votes by hand.
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