Ivory Coast President Wins Election
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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — President Henri Konan Bedie held on to his job Monday with an overwhelming 96% of the vote. Opposition parties that boycotted the election called the results a sham.
The presidential election Sunday was the first for Bedie, the former leader of the National Assembly who took office when longtime ruler Felix Houphouet-Boigny died in 1993.
According to the government, 56% of the 3.8 million registered voters cast ballots.
The turnout was low compared with 1990, when 70% went to the polls to reelect Houphouet-Boigny, who turned his country--the world’s largest cocoa producer--into an island of stable prosperity in turbulent West Africa.
The autocratic Bedie, 61, hasn’t been nearly as popular, but he was expected to win based largely on Houphouet-Boigny’s popularity and the power of the Democratic Party he founded. The Democrats have ruled Ivory Coast since independence from France in 1960.
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