ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast’s constitutional council has declared incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo the winner of a critical election, contradicting the country’s election chief.
Paul Yao N’Dre, the head of the constitutional body, said Friday that Gbagbo had won with 51.4 percent of the vote, while opposition leader Alassane Ouattara got 48.6 percent.
That announcement comes only a day after the country’s election commission declared a victory for the opposition.
The commission gave Ouattara 54.1 percent of the vote, and those results are considered credible by international observers.
The government has however called those results an “attempted coup d’etat” and is refusing to accept them.
