A dangerous election looms in Ivory Coast

THE LAST time Ivory Coast had a close election, 3,000 people were killed. So when a policeman in Abidjan, its commercial capital, recently saw men with machetes pouring out of vans, chatting amicably with his police chief and then attacking nearby unarmed protesters while the police looked on, he complained to Amnesty International, a human-rights watchdog. “Their presence was not coincidental,” he said. “This reminds me of the two past crises when militias were sowing terror among the people.”Ivory Coast, Francophone west Africa’s biggest economy and a regional business hub, is on edge before the first round of a presidential election, due on October 31st. President Alassane Ouattara, aged 78, made matters worse by deciding to run for a third term, seemingly in breach of the constitution, after his chosen successor died in July. Rivalries within the same cast of ancient politicians who have fought over the country for 30 years once again threaten chaos. At least 14 people have been killed in political punch-ups since mid-August. Ivorians fear that worse is to come.