President Alassane Ouattara’s decision to stand for a third term in the this year’s elections in Côte d’Ivoire has sparked nationwide protests.
Police in riot gear cleared burning barricades in several parts of the commercial capital, Abidjan. At least four people have been killed in clashes in the country as hundreds took to the streets.
Three people were killed in the central town of Daoukro in clashes between Ouattara supporters and backers of a rival candidate, Henri Konan Bédié, a security source and witnesses told Al Jazeera.
Last Thursday, an 18-year-old died in the south-eastern town of Bonoua, 50 kilometres (30 miles) from Abidjan, in violence between demonstrators and security forces.
There have been sporadic protests in the country since last week when Ouattara went back on an earlier pledge and said he would run in the 31 October election.
Despite the violence, Ouattara’s Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP) party announced that he would be nominated formally as its candidate at a big rally in Abidjan on 22 August.
Reset button
Critics say President Ouattara’s decision to run for a third term violates the constitution and will destabilise a country still recovering from civil war.
“His candidacy is against the constitution – we don’t want a third term,” protester Hervé Séka in the Anono district told Al Jazeera.
Côte d’Ivoire’s laws limit individuals to serving only two terms as president, but Ouattara says that a new constitution adopted in 2016 acted as a reset button, allowing him to run again.
Ouattara, 78, announced a week ago that he would stand in the 31 October presidential election. The move came after his chosen successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died of a heart attack after returning to the country from France.
The election is taking place in a country still scarred by a civil war that erupted in 2011 when the former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to cede power to Ouattara after losing elections.
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