ICoast-vote,sched-lead All sides claim victory in Ivory Coast by-elections ATTENTION - RECASTS, ADDS comment from PDCI /// by Serge Arnold ABIDJAN, Jan 15 (AFP) - The former ruling Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI) won a swathe of seats in northern by-elections at the weekend, but only after almost nine in every ten voters boycotted the polls. The boycott was launched by the main opposition Rally of Rebublicans (RDR) party, whose leader Alassane Ouattara has been routed from the political process by successive regimes. The sidelining of Ouattara, a Muslim from the north, by a political establishment long dominated by Christians from the south, has ripped apart the once stable, relatively prosperous nation. The PDCI, which dominated politics in Ivory Coast until the country's first coup in December 1999, took 15 seats out of 24, final official results revealed on Monday, a day after the election. President Laurent Gbagbo's Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) won no seats, but remains the largest party in the parliament mostly elected in December. The vote came a week after a failed coup bid which authorities blamed on "northerners" and "foreigners" from neighboring west African nations. Four RDR candidates won seats in spite of a boycott call by their party in its own stronghold, to protest the exclusion of Ouattara, a former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) who was prime minister of Ivory Coast in the early 1990s. Authorities contend that Ouattara is not Ivorian and therefore uneligible to run for president or a seat in parliament. RDR spokesman Ali Keita hailed the boycott a "total success", welcoming the official turnout given by the national electoral commission -- only 13.27 percent -- as showing that "the RDR has proved it is the first party in Ivory Coast." Independent candidates won the five remaining seats Sunday in the 22 constituencies where voting took place, according to final figures issued by the commission. Two of the constituencies are represented by two MPs. No voting took place in Ouattara's home town, Kong, where officials once again postponed the by-election. Voting officials chased out in December had failed to return to the constituency, which should also have two MPs. The government called the polls to fill parliamentary seats left vacant because of disturbances in the affected constituencies during a general election held in December. Since presidential elections which Gbagbo won in October, more than 200 people have been killed in political violence, much of it linked to fall- out over Ouattara's exclusion from the political process. There have also been moutning attacks on people seen as northerners and foreigners, on a regular basis. RDR candidates appeared on all the ballot papers Sunday, as their boycott was not organised until after candidate registration took place. Despite the boycott, authorities could attribute winners in the by-elections as no minimum turnout was required. The overall result of Sunday's poll was to give the formerly sole ruling PDCI 94 seats out of 225 in parliament, with 96 for the FPI. However, PDCI Secretary-General Atsin Achy on Monday claimed that his own party was "the leading political force" in the country. The party's group in the national assembly would in fact have 101 members, Achy told AFP, since "seven independents we financed and sponsored have confirmed their formal return to the PDCI". The Democratic Party had run Ivory Coast from independence in 1960 until a military coup in December 1999 brought General Robert Guei to power amid political turmoil and and economic crisis. Guei agreed to stage presidential polls in October, but barred Ouattara and key PDCI candidates from standing, leaving only Gbagbo and the retired general to face off. Gbagbo took office after a mass uprising was unleashed when Guei tried to rig the vote. The election of a parliamentary speaker now depends on alliances in Abidjan, where independents will have a decisive role. Twenty-two independents --of whom 13 plan to form a new party -- have been elected. So have five RDR candidates, four from the Ivorian Workers' Party (PIT, an ally of the FPI), and one candidate each for the Movement of Forces for the Future and the Ivory Coast Union of Democrats. sa-il/nb/jlr ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------