Police Teargas Protesters Demanding I.Coast Election Results

Police teargas protesters demanding I.Coast election results

Riot police fired teargas overnight to break up crowds of demonstrators demanding the release of results from a tense weekend election in Ivory Coast, a candidate and witnesses said.

Abidjan, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Oct, 2018 ) :Riot police fired teargas overnight to break up crowds of demonstrators demanding the release of results from a tense weekend election in Ivory Coast, a candidate and witnesses said.

A number of people were injured during the incident which occurred overnight in Grand-Bassam, a beach resort town near Ivory Coast's main city Abidjan and followed a day of tension over Saturday's elections that were marred by clashes which left one man dead.

"People had gathered outside the police headquarters to demand that the results be declared," Georges Ezaley told AFP, a candidate with the Ivory Coast Democratic Party (PDCI).

"At around 1:00 am, the police broke up the crowd by firing tear gas, many people were wounded, mainly older people," he said, his words confirmed by a local resident.

"The people were surrounding the police headquarters to wait for the results, they were teargassed," the resident said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The results were validated on Sunday morning by the Independent Electoral Commission and signed off by the representatives of all the candidates but by Sunday evening, they still hadn't announced them," Ezaley said.

"There is something amiss here."By Monday morning, the results had still not been published.