Parliamentary elections were held in

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...

on 18 December 2016. The new

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

, which was approved in a

referendum A referendum, plebiscite, or ballot measure is a Direct democracy, direct vote by the Constituency, electorate (rather than their Representative democracy, representatives) on a proposal, law, or political issue. A referendum may be either bin ...

in October, reduced the term for the 255 members of the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

from five to four years. The presidential coalition, the

Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace The Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (, RHDP) is a political party in Ivory Coast. History The RHDP was established as a political alliance on 18 May 2005, seeking to reclaim the political ideology of the country's founding presid ...

(composed of the

Rally of the Republicans The Rally of the Republicans (; abbreviated RDR) is a liberal party in Ivory Coast (). The party is the country's governing party; the party's leader, Alassane Ouattara, is the current President of Ivory Coast. History The RDR, which has mos ...

, the

Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally The Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally (; abbreviated PDCI-RDA) is a centre-right political party in Ivory Coast. History Founded during the colonial era in 1946, as an outgrowth of the African Agricultural Union, and ...

and some minor parties) won more than the half the seats in the

Electoral system

The 255 members of the

were elected from 169 single-member constituencies and 36 multi-member constituencies with between two and six seats. In single-member constituencies voters cast a vote for one candidate who is elected by

first-past-the-post voting First-past-the-post (FPTP)—also called choose-one, first-preference plurality (FPP), or simply plurality—is a single-winner voting rule. Voters mark one candidate as their favorite, or first-preference, and the candidate with more first- ...

; whereas in multi-member constituencies candidates were elected by

plurality-at-large voting Plurality block voting is a type of block voting method for multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of seats to be filled. The candidates with the most votes are elected. The usual result when the candidates div ...

, where voters cast a single vote for a

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively vote for only political parties as a whole; thus they have no influence on the party-supplied order in which party candidates are elected. If voters had some in ...

, with the list receiving the most votes winning all seats in the constituency.

Campaign

A total of 1,336 candidates contested the elections, 597 representing 38 political parties and 739 as independents. CEI The

had the most candidates (248), with the

Ivorian Popular Front The Ivorian Popular Front (; abbr. FPI) is a centre-left, democratic socialist and social democratic political party in Ivory Coast. History FPI was founded in exile in 1982 by history professor Laurent Gbagbo, Aboudramane Sangaré, and oth ...

(which had boycotted the 2011 elections) the only other party to run candidates in more than half of constituencies, having nominated 187 candidates. Sixteen parties contested only one seat.

Results

In constituency 34 there was a tie between two candidates, with the independent candidate Léonard Guéi Desseloue and Marius Sarr Bohe ( RHDP) both receiving 1,231 votes. A second round of voting took place within 15 days. Léonard Sahé won the last constituency achieving 52.69% while Marius Sarr got 46.31%.

Aftermath

When the National Assembly began meeting for the new parliamentary term,

Guillaume Soro Guillaume Kigbafori Soro (born 8 May 1972) is an Ivorian politician who was the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire from April 2007 to March 2012. Prior to his service as Prime Minister, Soro led the Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire, and later ...

, an RHDP deputy, was re-elected as President of the National Assembly on 9 January 2017. He received 230 votes from the 252 deputies present; Evariste Méambly, an independent deputy, received 12 votes, and there were 10 spoilt votes.Claire Rainfroy
"Côte d’Ivoire : Guillaume Soro largement réélu président de l’Assemblée nationale"
''Jeune Afrique'', 9 January 2017 .

References

External links

* Independent Electoral Commission * {{Ivorian elections

Ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and Tooth, teeth of animals, that consists mainly of dentine, one of the physical structures of teeth and tusks. The chemical structure of the teeth and tusks of mamm ...

2016 in Ivory Coast Elections in Ivory Coast December 2016 in Africa