I.Coast opposition joins forces in reform demand before election

Twenty-five opposition parties in Ivory Coast announced Monday they had formed a coalition to push demands for electoral reform and political dialogue ahead of an October presidential ballot.

The Coalition for Peaceful Alternation in Ivory Coast brings together parties with vastly different ideologies and agendas but the aim of the new grouping is to ensure lasting peace in the world's top cocoa producer.

It has not announced a common presidential candidate so far.

Ivory Coast was a haven of stability and prosperity since it gained independence from France in 1960 but a Christmas Eve coup in 1999 ushered in a period of conflict and deadly poll violence.

President Alassane Ouattara, 83, who has been in power since 2011, has not yet said whether he plans to run for a fourth term on October 25.

The new coalition includes the historically dominant Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) of main opposition leader Tidjane Thiam which ruled uninterruptedly from 1960 until the December 1999 coup and the Movement of Capable Generations (MGC) of former firebrand first lady Simone Ehivet Gbagbo.

"We are determined to do everything possible to ensure that peace reigns in Ivory Coast, so that we have inclusive elections in which all those who want to stand can be a candidate and that we finally let the Ivorians freely decide who should lead them," Thiam, the coalition's coordinator, said.

It is calling on the authorities to hold political dialogue before the elections and to reform the independent electoral commission which it says is too aligned with the government and a review of voters' rolls.

The west African nation was hit by violence in 2010 and 2011 that killed around 3,000 people after then president Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara after a highly controversial vote.

In 2020, at least 85 people were killed in violence on the margins of an election in which Ouattara won a third term.