Yopougon, 06 June, 2024 / 9:00 pm (ACI Africa).
Catholic Bishops in Ivory Coast are calling on all stakeholders involved in the electoral process in the West African nation to ensure that the 2025 elections leave the country more united.
Ivory Coast is expected to hold Presidential elections in October 2025. President Alassane Ouattara, who was re-elected in 2020 has not yet said whether he will be in the presidential race again. Former leader, Laurent Gbagbo has agreed to fly his party's flag as presidential candidate in the 2025 elections.
In a statement shared with ACI Africa on Thursday, June 6, members of the Episcopal Conference of Ivory Coast (CECCI) charged everyone involved in the preparations for the country’s general elections to guarantee fair, transparent, and peaceful elections.
“How can we ensure that this election is an instrument of peace, social cohesion, and living together?” the Bishops posed. “What is the point of repeating at length that life is sacred if the elections that punctuate socio-political life in our country mark a period of serious disturbance for life?” CECCI members further posed in the statement they issued on June 2 at the end of their 125th Plenary Assembly in the Catholic Diocese of Yopougon.
In their statement, Catholic Bishops in Ivory Coast conveyed the concerns and questions of Ivorian society as the electoral year approaches, calling on the government, political parties, religious leaders, and the media “to act on all the levers that guarantee fair, transparent, credible, inclusive and peaceful elections.”
