Parliamentary elections were held in

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

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, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed. When ...

, which was approved in a

referendum A referendum (plural: referendums or less commonly referenda) is a direct vote by the electorate on a proposal, law, or political issue. This is in contrast to an issue being voted on by a representative. This may result in the adoption of a ...

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 repre ...

from five to four years. The presidential coalition, the

Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace The Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (french: Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix, RHDP) is a political party in Ivory Coast. History The RHDP was established as a political alliance on 18 May 2005, se ...

(composed of the

Rally of the Republicans The Rally of the Republicans (french: Rassemblement des Républicains; 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 C ...

, the

Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally The Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally (french: Parti Démocratique de la Côte d'Ivoire — Rassemblement Démocratique Africain; abbreviated PDCI-RDA) is a centre-right political party in Ivory Coast. History Founde ...

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 In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

; whereas in multi-member constituencies candidates were elected by

plurality-at-large voting Plurality block voting, also known as plurality-at-large voting, block vote or block voting (BV) is a non- proportional voting system for electing representatives in multi-winner elections. Each voter may cast as many votes as the number of sea ...

, where voters cast a single vote for a

closed list Closed list describes the variant of party-list systems where voters can effectively only vote for 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 inf ...

, 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.Statistique des candidatures retenues par groupement au 13/12/2016
CEI The

had the most candidates (248), with the

Ivorian Popular Front The Ivorian Popular Front (french: Front populaire ivoirien; abbr. FPI) is a centre-left, democratic socialist and social democratic political party in Ivory Coast. FPI was founded in exile in 1982 by history professor Laurent Gbagbo, Aboudram ...

(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

List of candidates
Independent Electoral Commission
National Results
{{Ivorian elections

Ivory Ivory is a hard, white material from the tusks (traditionally from elephants) and 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 mammals is ...

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