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ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast authorities have detained a senior aide to opposition leader Laurent Gbagbo, accusing him of having called for an uprising ahead of last month’s presidential polls, the prosecutor said on Wednesday.
Damana Pickass was detained near Abidjan on Tuesday, prosecutor Oumar Braman Kone said in a statement.
Pickass is the chief coordinator of the Common Front, which groups the two main opposition parties headed by Gbagbo and former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam.
Both Gbagbo and Thiam were barred from standing in October 25 presidential polls that saw 83-year-old President Alassane Outtara secure a fourth term in the world’s top cocoa producer.
The Front had called for demonstrations in the run-up to the election to denounce the exclusion of its candidates, despite the government banning rallies by parties not taking part in the vote.
Another protest is planned for Saturday.
Kone said that political figures including Pickass had “called for a popular uprising and the overthrow of the Republic’s institutions.”
Those calls “resulted in acts of violence that threatened national security,” he added.
Gbagbo’s party denounced the arrest as the “ongoing persecution of the opposition.”
Pickass was “being hunted down,” Sebastien Dano Djedje, executive president of the African People’s Party – Ivory Coast (PPA-CI), one of the two parties making up the Common Front, said on Wednesday.
The October 25 election was largely peaceful but did see some violence, in a country where presidential elections are often synonymous with political tensions.
At least 11 people died in demonstrations before the vote or in clashes on election day. The opposition claims a death toll of 27.
More than 100 people have been sentenced to three years in prison for participating in the demonstrations, according to their lawyers.