Category World News

According to preliminary results, Alassane Ouattara has won re-election to the Ivory Coast’s presidential election.

With 89.77 percent of the votes cast, the nation’s Independent Electoral Commission announced on Monday that the 83-year-old incumbent had won a fourth term.

In a race that excluded Ouattara’s main rivals, nearly nine million Ivorians were eligible to cast ballots on Saturday. Former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam and ex-President Laurent Gbagbo were denied entry to France because of a criminal conviction, and Tidjane Thiam was denied entry to France.

The remaining four candidates, who lacked significant financial resources and support from a major political party, were not seen as viable candidates.

3.09 percent of the vote went to one of them, former Commerce Minister Jean-Louis Billon, who had congratulated Ouattara on Sunday. According to the results, which were presented on state television by the electoral commission’s president, Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, former first lady Simone Gbagbo, 2.42 percent.

Turnout was estimated to be around 50%, which is close to the levels of the presidential elections in 2010 and 2015, but far below the 80 percent who cast ballots in the first round in 2010.

Ahmed Idris, a journalist from the Ivorian capital Abidjan, claimed that he had won with a “landslide victory” due to the low voter turnout and the ban on Ouattara’s main rivals.

The electoral commission’s claim that more than 50% of the voting population participated in this election could give Ouattara the legitimacy he needs to run a government raises questions for “many people,” he said.

“Deeply divided nation”

The leader is accused of choosing his electoral opponents according to the accusation of Ouattara’s detractors.

In response to his decision to run for a fourth term, many voters abstained. Presidents may only serve for two terms under the constitution, but Ouattara claims that a 2016 constitutional change “reset” his cap.

In response to the government’s decision to forbid demonstrations and arrest over 200 members of the Common Front political movement, sporadic&nbsp, protests&nbsp, had erupted in the weeks leading up to the election.

Analysts worry that there will be unavoidable violence on election day, despite the fact that more than 44 000 police and military personnel are stationed all over the country to keep things calm while voting.

Idris, a journalist for Al Jazeera, claimed that it was up to Ouattara to “unite a deeply divided nation” and that he needed to work hard to persuade his critics.

Before becoming prime minister in 1990, Ouattara, who had a distinguished career at the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of West African States, has emphasized how much the economy has improved under his leadership, including improved infrastructure and stability, as well as increased foreign investment.

However, corruption persists and social inequality persists.

A public debt of about 60% of GDP is still a significant burden on the former French colony, which is also the country’s top producer of cocoa, and there are still significant educational and health gaps.

“Many Ivorians believe that their economic success has not yet been reached. Many of them claim that due to the high cost of living, their families continue to struggle. Additionally, Idris noted that there are fewer jobs available to young people.

He claimed Ouattara had promised to implement reforms to eliminate inequality. It’s not yet clear whether or not that will result in significant employment opportunities, job creation, and more wealth for people, he said.

threats to security

In a region where regional instability is increasing, Ouattara’s campaign had a strong emphasis on security.

As violence threatens to spread to Sahel neighbors Mali and Burkina Faso, where armed groups like Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) and the ISIL affiliate in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) have been staging a bloody rampage.

Since 2022, his administration has increased troop deployments in the Sahel’s northern regions, increased the defense budget, and purchased armored tanks from nations like China.

He has pledged to assist in the passing of the torch to a new generation of political leaders as internal instability increases. The ruling party is rife with division and there is no known successor at this time.

International Crisis Group deputy director of the Africa program, Rinaldo Dipagne, claimed that appointing a successor to the country’s founding president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, would lead to the same kind of crisis that followed the country’s 1993 armed conflict.

According to Reuters, Dipagne was quoted as saying, “People saw that they didn’t have a future with politics, or they couldn’t imagine that politics would bring about positive change in the country.”

Argentines cast their ballots on Sunday in midterm elections, which attracted a remarkable amount of international interest. This was in part due to Washington’s potential $40 billion bailout of Buenos Aires, which the country had promised. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, made it clear that the cash injection would depend on the results of the election.

And Javier Milei, Trump’s far-right pal and the country’s uniquely coiffed president, delivered on time. More than 40% of the votes cast went to La Libertad Avanza, a partid that Milliei’s party, in early voting, to claim a rather startling victory. A third of the Senate seats and the lower chamber of deputies in Argentina were up for grabs.

Naturally, Trump made no mistaken claim by appropriating Milei’s victory as a personal victory, claiming that she “had a lot of help from us.” He was greatly helped.

Trump claimed before the election that his generous gesture to Milei, which was made even as the US president was overseeing extensive home-based healthcare cuts, was his own way of “helping a great philosophy take over a great country.”

Similar to Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, claimed that Milei’s “bridge” was being built in hopes that “Argentina can be great again.”

Call it the South American version of MAGA.

It’s not quite clear when, exactly, in history Argentina was ever so “great,” as is the case with the US itself. Of course, there were the days of the US-backed Dirty War, when a right-wing military dictatorship murdered and disappeared tens of thousands of suspected leftists who had been dropped from aircraft into the ocean or Rio de la Plata.

In his biography of the late US diplomat Henry Kissinger, historian Greg Grandin put it in his 1976 advice to the junta’s foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Augusto Guzzetti, “If there are things that need to be done, you should do them quickly.”

Another outstanding “philosophy.”

Trump is now on the verge of resuming the US’s influence in the South American nation. There is still room for right-wing brutality even though the days of dropping bodies from airplanes may be over.

Milei, who self-identifies as an “anarcho-capitalist” and became president in 2023, has a sweet habit of slicing the chainsaw at political rallies to represent his method of governance, which has resulted in mass layoffs and pension cuts, as well as slashing spending on healthcare, education, and other public services.

During Milei’s austerity program, poverty reached a high of nearly 53% in Argentina during the first six months. The price of goods has decreased, as do purchasing power, and most Argentines do not make enough money to cover their monthly expenses, according to surveys. Pardon, Trump’s victory on Sunday helped to keep the “chainsaw” strategy alive, which has in any case worked out well for some elite sections of the populace in Argentina.

Less than 15% of the seats in Congress were previously held by Milei’s party. In consequence, the president was left to run his own business by an opposition that fought to overturn his vetoes on issues like restoring congressional funding for pediatric healthcare and universities.

Trump’s heart is forever invested in Milei’s sociopathic efforts, and the US president has repeatedly defended him by saying, “Everyone knows he’s doing the right thing. However, you have a very dangerous group of people called “radical-left sick,” who are trying to make him look bad.

It’s true, a “radical-left sick culture” needs to advocate for people with disabilities or for children to receive medical attention.

In addition, Milei’s government has successfully used tear gas and rubber bullets to protest violent austerity measures and increase the number of Argentinians who have disabilities. Jonathan Navarro, 33, protested for his father and other retirees in one eye with a rubber bullet in March.

Trump, on the other hand, recently made a friendly joke to Milei about the possibility of sending Tomahawk missiles to Argentina: “You need them for your opposition, I guess. The Argentinian president proposed a $1 million initiative to improve relations between Latin America and the genocidal state in August. Trump and Milei also have views on Israel.

The list goes on and on. Trump has never opposed corruption or nepotism, as long as he is the one who benefits, so Milei made a quick choice by appointing his own sister as secretary-general. Karina Milei has played the leading role in one of the scandals that allegedly threatened to undermine his party’s performance in Sunday’s midterm elections.

Diego Spagnuolo, the then head of Argentina’s National Disability Agency, was reportedly the subject of bribes Karina Milei allegedly pocketed in exchange for pharmaceutical contracts involving the procurement of medications for people with disabilities in leaked audio recordings in August.

Only a “radical-left sick culture” would have been affected by this arrangement, in any case.

Impoverished Argentinians have a lot to lose, especially now that Milei’s unhinged free-market experiment has a new lease of life. However, as Trump stated in his victory speech after the results were released, “We’ve made a lot of money based on that election because the bonds have gone up.” Their overall rating for debt has increased.

The president continued, noting that the US was “not in that for the money, per se.” Remember those words as Argentina once more ascended to greatness.