Amadou Gon Coulibaly
Ivory Coast names interim prime minister
Patrick Achi, secretary general to the presidency of the Ivory Coast, was appointed Monday interim prime minister while the country’s premier, Hamed Bakayoko, is in Europe receiving medical treatment, the president’s office said. “State minister Patrick Achi will take over the functions of prime minister and head of government in an interim capacity,” the presidency said in a statement. Tene Birahima Ouattara, presidential affairs minister and the younger brother of President Alassane Ouattara, was appointed interim defence minister, also replacing Bakayoko in that position. Bakayoko, 56, travelled to France on February 18 for health reasons and has just been transferred to a hospital in Germany, a source close to the presidency told AFP, without specifying exactly when. The nature of Baka...
Ivory Coast bars public protests until September
Ivory Coast has banned all outdoor protests until 15 September, according to a statement Thursday issued after deadly clashes ahead of presidential elections in October. The cabinet late Wednesday “decided to suspend protests in public areas, authorising them only in enclosed spaces… until 15 September,” the government said in a statement. The measure “draws the consequences of the impact, in human and property terms, from previous demonstrations and the risk that pockets of inter-community conflicts could open up,” it said. On 13 August, angry protests erupted in the economic hub Abidjan, and demonstrations in the central town of Daoukro turned to bloody ethnic clashes, after President Alassane Ouattara announced he would bid for a third term. Critics of Ouattara say the 78-year-old is on...
One dead in fresh Ivory Coast clashes over president’s re-election bid
vAt least one person was killed in clashes in Ivory Coast on Saturday in the latest violence sparked by President Alassane Ouattara’s controversial decision to run for a third term in October. The shooting death brings to four the number of people killed in the central town of Daoukro, a stronghold of former president Henri Konan Bedie, who is also a candidate in the election. Across Ivory Coast, at least six people have died and more than 100 have been injured in violence after Ouattara’s shock announcement. Tensions were high on Saturday in Daoukro, where clashes between supporters of Bedie and Ouattara began on Tuesday. The town’s main market and shops were closed and police were deployed all over. Armed with shotguns, clubs and machetes, young people from the village of Anoumabo rushed...
