Ivory Coast Leader Quashes Foes, Then Gets 95% Of Votes

President Henri Konan Bedie was sworn into office Friday after winning his first election, which most opponents boycotted and denounced as a farce.

At a brief ceremony, the government announced that Bedie received 95 percent of the votes cast Oct. 22. His only challenger, Francis Wodie of the little-known Ivorian Workers Party, won 4 percent.

The rate of voter participation was not given, although in the past week government officials have said it was 56 percent. Opposition parties say voter turnout was far below 50 percent.

Bedie took office in December 1993 at the death of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who had been president since independence from France in 1960. The Oct. 22 vote was Bedie’s first electoral challenge, but the opposition boycott guaranteed him a massive victory.

Hundreds of cheering people lined the streets leading to the presidential palace, where the Constitutional Council released the official results.

Bedie walked along a red carpet lined with uniformed guards into the palace to be installed for a five-year term. He did not make a public statement.

The main opposition parties, the Rally of the Republicans and the Ivorian Popular Front, refused to take part in the vote to protest Bedie’s authoritarian rule.

Despite proclaiming Ivory Coast a multiparty democracy, Bedie banned opposition rallies throughout the campaign period and sent in heavily armed riot police to crush those who tried to defy the ban.

Bedie also approved a law that limited candidates to people with two Ivorian parents. That eliminated his strongest challenger, Rally of the Republicans leader Alassane Ouattara, who is of mixed heritage.