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Vol 67 No 10

Published 15th May 2026


Ouattara rewrites the rules

As the presidency dissolves the electoral commission, the main opposition parties are mired in internecine strife

The Wednesday press briefings that follow the weekly ministerial meetings under President Alassane Dramane Ouattara are usually routine affairs. But on 6 May, government spokesperson Amadou Coulibaly surprised everybody: the Commission électorale indépendante (CEI), the body that had overseen every election since its creation in 2001, was to be dissolved. Replacing it, Coulibaly said, would be ‘a new election management mechanism’, the details of which remain unknown. The next day, Ouattara signed a decree appointing the now former CEI president Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, a magistrate, to lead the Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court.

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