'People look very eager to cast their ballot'

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00The polls are just opening now. It's supposed to start at 8 o'clock for

00:05several parts of the country, especially in Abidjan, the capital where I am. The

00:12polls have started, a lot of the electronic materials arrived yesterday

00:18and the polls have started. There are places that we are having reports this

00:25more now that they haven't gotten their electoral materials yet and so even

00:31though people are lined up in queues waiting, the polls are yet to open. Where

00:39I am is just behind me. They've just started. It's in the very densely

00:44populated neighborhood of Treshville where people look very eager to cast

00:52their ballot and some of them had arrived here as early as about 6 a.m. and were

00:59very very much in high spirit to cast their ballot. And the build-up to this

01:04election has seen protests, it's seen arrests. What's the latest on that?

01:11It's been one of the major highlights of this election. It's the the two-month ban

01:18that has been placed on such public gatherings and and protests. Some people

01:25mainly from the opposition political parties who've had their leaders banned

01:31from contesting in this election have been mobilizing and throwing themselves onto the

01:37streets and and and and organizing some of these protests. Over the last couple of

01:43weeks around 700 of such persons have been arrested from several protests across the

01:52country, mainly here in Abidjan to the west and in places like Yamoussoukro, which is

01:59the main capital where a polling station was set on fire a few weeks ago by

02:06protesters. Only yesterday 200 of them were sentenced to three years imprisonment and

02:15their crimes were taking part in ban demonstrations and what the authorities

02:22describe as disturbing public order and gathering on on public roads. It's one of

02:29the things that really a lot of watchers of this election are looking at and asking

02:34how that would impact today's election. How are people able to turn up to vote amidst the

02:44fears of all of that that is happening with the arrest and everything, right?

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