ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivorians braced for extra unrest Sunday as election officers tallied votes and opponents of President Alassane Ouattara stepped up their criticism of his quest for a 3rd time period.

Opposition leaders who boycotted the vote have claimed that a minimum of a dozen individuals died in violence associated to Saturday’s election, with out giving particulars. Greater than 20 others had been killed within the run-up to the vote, human rights teams mentioned.

On Sunday, outstanding dissident Guillaume Soro mentioned from exile in France that he not thought-about Ouattara to be Ivory Coast’s head of state after the federal government went forward with elections even after the 2 essential rivals dropped out. Soro, a former prime minister and president of Ivory Coast’s Nationwide Meeting, had been disqualified from operating in Saturday’s election earlier this yr.

“Confronted with the electoral parody in Ivory Coast, (the GPS celebration) calls on the Ivorian individuals to take away former president Alassane Ouattara from energy,” Soro tweeted from exile in France. “Ivory Coast will assume its future and the impostor will fall.”

There was no rapid response from Ouattara, who was re-elected 5 years in the past with practically 84% of the vote and has broad worldwide assist.

Soro’s feedback about his former mentor got here as some Ivorians feared a attainable return to the electoral violence that had engulfed the nation practically a decade in the past. The 2010 election standoff led to months of preventing that left greater than 3,000 individuals useless after then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat to Ouattara, the internationally acknowledged winner.

Ouattara is now looking for a 3rd time period in workplace, which his opponents take into account unlawful. Nevertheless, the president insists his earlier two phrases not rely due to a constitutional referendum accredited in 2016. Tensions over his bid for an additional time period have revived previous wounds from the nation’s earlier political standoff, with critics complaining the Ouattara administration has did not result in nationwide reconciliation throughout his years in energy.

Critics say Ouattara has all however predetermined the end result as 40 of the 44 candidates looking for to problem him had been disqualified, together with Soro and Gbagbo. Two of his three remaining opponents — Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Henri Konan Bedie — boycotted Saturday’s vote and requested their supporters to remain dwelling too.

N’Guessan advised reporters late Saturday that a minimum of a dozen individuals had died in violence linked to the election, which he described as an “electoral coup d’etat.” Greater than 20 others already had died within the run-up to the vote, in keeping with human rights teams.

Within the streets of Abidjan, there was uncertainty Sunday about what the approaching days would convey and whether or not the discharge of even partial election outcomes may set off extra unrest.

Moussa Doumbia, 67, mentioned residents within the Abobo neighborhood of Abidjan wished to keep away from the bloody battle of elections previous.

“We not need hate. We wish peace, in order that what occurred in 2010 by no means occurs once more,” he mentioned.

Whereas the streets in pro-opposition neighborhoods had been largely abandoned Sunday, markets reopened in Ouattara strongholds like Abobo the place ladies neatly lined up piles of contemporary tilapia fish to promote to consumers trudging by means of muddy footpaths.

“We’re afraid of what is to come back,” mentioned Aicha Toure, a vegetable vendor, as she sliced cabbage at her stall. “We do not know what is going on to occur.”

On Saturday, opposition activists put up barricades in lots of neighborhoods, and in some areas voting supplies had been seized from depots and burned.

Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, president of the Unbiased Electoral Fee, advised reporters there had been just a few “minor disturbances.”

“There are barely 30 to 40 polling stations that had been ransacked,” out of greater than 22,000 nationwide, he mentioned.

Ouattara referred to as on Ivorians to halt acts of violence aimed toward disrupting the vote as he solid his poll earlier within the day in Abidjan’s Cocody neighborhood.

“Allow them to cease,” he mentioned. “Allow them to cease as a result of Ivory Coast wants peaces”

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Related Press author Toussaint N’Gotta contributed.