Night Curfew In Ivory Coast

Authorities are imposing a nighttime curfew in Ivory Coast, where tension is running high ahead of Sunday’s presidential runoff election.

A decree from President Laurent Gbagbo said the curfew will run from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time Saturday and Sunday and then from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. each night Monday through Wednesday.

Mr. Gbagbo’s runoff opponent, Alassane Ouattara, said the measure will allow election fraud, and said he and his supporters will not comply with it.

The president said the curfew is designed to maintain order during the election. The measure does not apply to electoral officials, campaign staff, U.N. personnel, election observers, and journalists.

Witnesses say three people died and several others were injured in the city of Abidjan Saturday as police fired on protesters in a pro-Ouattara neighborhood. At least one other person died in election-related street violence on Thursday.

On Saturday, the mediator in Ivory Coast’s political crisis, Burkina Faso’s President Blaise Compaore, was in Abidjan for talks with Mr. Gbagbo and Mr. Ouattara about the curfew and other issues.

Ivory Coast is voting for a new president for the first time since a 2002 civil war.

The first round of the election in October passed without incident. Mr. Gbagbo won 38 percent of the vote to 32 percent for Mr. Ouattara. The runoff hinges on which candidate will attract the voters who backed the third-place candidate, former president Henri Konan Bedie.

President Gbagbo’s term officially ended in 2005. But elections were postponed several times since then because of failure to disarm rebels and disputes over who was eligible to vote.

The rebels tried to oust Mr. Gbabgo’s government in September 2002, while he was out of the country. The resulting conflict led to Ivory Coast being split between a rebel-controlled north and a government-run south. The government and rebels signed a peace accord in 2007.afp, Reuters, RFI, prev