The party of former Ivory Coast leader Laurent Gbagbo said on Sunday that two of its members had been arrested as part of an intimidation campaign by authorities.
Critics have long accused the West African nation’s government of trying to silence the opposition before a constitutionally contested presidential election. Gbagbo is among opposition figures barred from running by the courts as police make a spate of arrests targeting dissenting activists.
Gbagbo’s African People’s Party of Ivory Coast (PPACI) said former minister Moise Lida Kouassi and ex-ambassador Boubacar Kone were held in pre-trial detention. The two men are accused of being responsible for the unrest and violence that broke out on the sidelines of a protest held the previous week.
Prosecutors reported a bus was set on fire and a police car was vandalized by individuals armed with machetes and firearms in the Yopougon commune. Eleven people were arrested in connection with these scenes in Yopougon, where thousands had marched peacefully against Ouattara’s candidacy just one day earlier.
The PPACI vehemently denied any involvement in the assaults on the bus and police car, urging the immediate release of its detained members. The party’s executive president, Sebastien Dano Djedje, complained of “a campaign of intimidation and repression” and “judicial and political harassment.”
Opponents have long questioned the legality of Ouattara’s mandates because the law limited him to two terms before a new constitution was adopted in 2016. Gbagbo was ultimately barred from running against Ouattara based on a prior conviction in Ivory Coast stemming from a post-election crisis.