Cote d’Ivoire’s President Alassane Ouattara has won a fourth term, securing a crushing 89.77 per cent in a vote which his two greatest rivals were barred from, the electoral commission said yesterday.

Nearly nine million voters were eligible to cast their ballot last Saturday in the world’s top cocoa producer, which has resisted coups and jihadist attacks plaguing much of West Africa but which saw tensions soar and deadly violence in the run-up to the election.

Even before the provisional results’ announcement Ouattara was already anticipated to have swept the polls, after early tallies on Sunday showed him winning upwards of 90 per cent of the vote. Turnout was close to 100 per cent in his northern strongholds.

The political veteran was also ahead in traditionally pro-opposition areas in the south and parts of the economic hub Abidjan, where polling stations had been almost empty on Saturday.

Entrepreneur Jean-Louis Billon came second to the veteran leader with 3.09 per cent, said the commission’s president Ibrahime Kuibiert Coulibaly, who announced a 50.10 per cent turnout — a similar level to 2020, when Ouattara won 94 per cent of the vote in an election boycotted by the main opponents.