For First Time, Ivory Coast Voters Get a Choice of Parties

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast —  Voters cast ballots in the country’s first multi-party parliamentary election Sunday amid opposition charges of intimidation and fraud by the party that has ruled unchallenged for 30 years.

Early results are expected today. Reports indicated that turnout was low as President Felix Houphouet-Boigny’s ruling Democratic Party headed for an easy victory.

In the capital of Abidjan, voter turnout was as low as 30%, and reports from the interior of the cocoa-growing West African country confirmed the scant enthusiasm for the first popularity test for fledgling opposition parties.

About 4.4 million people registered to choose 175 lawmakers from among the 490 candidates representing 19 parties.

The Democrats are assured of 40 seats that are unchallenged. They are expected to easily win a majority, reinforcing Houphouet-Boigny’s huge victory last month in the nation’s first contested presidential race.

His sole challenger, Popular Front leader Laurent Gbagbo, accused the ruling party of rigging that election, in which the 85-year-old Houphouet-Boigny received 81.67% of the votes.

Early Sunday, about 200 armed soldiers surrounded Gbagbo’s constituency of Ouragahio, 170 miles northwest of Abidjan. A spokesman for the opposition leader said the local government there had announced that people could vote without producing identity or voter registration cards.

In the central town of Bouake, Popular Front officials said their representatives were refused entry into polling stations to monitor voting. All parties fielding candidates are supposed to be able to watch the voting.

The run-up to the elections had been quiet, with the first violence reported Saturday in Abidjan’s suburb of Yopougon.

Several people remained hospitalized after a clash there between supporters of the conservative Democratic Party and the left-leaning Popular Front.

The suburb’s deputy mayor, Mustapha Doukoure, a candidate in the election, said Popular Front supporters threw stones and beat ruling party members with sticks to stop them from holding a peaceful march. He said 37 of his supporters were injured.

The opposition party said, however, that the clash occurred after men in three cars drove into a crowd of its followers leaving a meeting, injuring several. In the fighting that followed, 17 people were hurt and 10 of those were being treated in the hospital, a party spokesman said.