Ivory Coast Prime Minister Daniel Kablan Duncan resigned and dissolved the government on Monday in a move that had been expected following the approval of a new constitution and parliamentary elections last month.
“I have tendered my resignation and that of the government, he said at the Presidential palace, after a meeting with President Alassane Ouattara,” he said.
Duncan’s resignation came months after the country approved a new constitution in a referendum boycotted by the opposition.
The constitution amendment, Ouattara’s brainchild, seeks to end decades of instability in the cocoa-rich West African nation.
Ouattara, 73, promised to deliver a new constitution after he was re-elected in 2015 to a second five-year term. The new constitution notably scraps the stipulation that both parents of presidential candidates must have been born in Ivory Coast.
In the past, this clause prevented Ouattara himself for running for the country’s top office.
It was also resented by many in the north of the country, where many people have family connections to neighbouring countries, as a symbol of exclusion. The question of national identity – of who is a real Ivorian – has long been a source of violent friction in Ivory Coast.
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