Ouattara Secures Overwhelming Fourth Term in Ivory Coast Election
ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast – President Alassane Ouattara, 82, has been re-elected for a fourth term after a landslide victory in Saturday’s presidential election, the country’s electoral commission announced on Monday.
Official results confirmed that Ouattara won a staggering 89.77 percent of the vote. The election proceeded peacefully, allaying fears of widespread unrest that had been fueled by pre-election tensions.
The poll was marked by the absence of Ouattara’s two main political rivals, who were disqualified from running. This left entrepreneur Jean-Louis Billon as the nearest challenger, with a distant 3.09 percent of the vote, according to Ibrahime Kuibiert Coulibaly, the president of the electoral commission.
Voter turnout was recorded at 50.10 percent, a figure similar to the 2020 election. The results revealed a strong regional divide in participation. In President Ouattara’s northern strongholds, turnout was reported to be nearly 100 percent. Conversely, in southern regions and parts of the economic capital, Abidjan—traditional opposition bastions—many polling stations saw low voter participation.
Despite this, the provisional results indicated that Ouattara made significant inroads in these opposition-leaning areas, sweeping the polls across most of the country.
This victory reinforces President Ouattara’s dominant position in Ivorian politics. He first came to power in 2011 and has since maintained a firm grip on the nation. His continued leadership underscores the relative political stability of Ivory Coast, a nation that has largely avoided the coups and insurgencies affecting other parts of West Africa.
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