The Ivory Coast went to the polls on Saturday for a presidential election, with the favorite, 83-year-old President Alassane Ouattara, seeking to extend his rule to almost two decades.

Altogether five candidates are contesting the election, in which more than 8 million people are eligible to vote from a population of 32 million.

Polling stations close at 6 p.m. local time (1800 GMT) and provisional results are expected within five days. A runoff will be held if no candidate wins more than 50% of the vote.

Ouattara, from the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party, is claiming credit for nearly 15 years of economic growth and relative stability but has suggested that this will be his last campaign.

He is a former international banker and deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Candidates ruled ineligible

The run-up to the election has seen several protests after two major rivals to Ouattara were banned from the final list of candidates alongside other would-be contenders.

Tidjane Thiam, a former Credit Suisse executive, and Ouattara's predecessor, Laurent Gbagbo, were both excluded from running.

Thiam was barred because of his former dual nationality — he renounced his French citizenship in March, but that was ruled as being too late by a court.

Gbagbo was barred from standing as president because of a criminal conviction in an Ivorian court related to the 2011 election-related war, triggered by his refusal to cede power to Ouattara.

He also stood trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague over war crimes accusations in the same conflict but was acquitted.

Several hundred people were arrested at protests by their supporters, raising fears of a repeat of the election violence in 2010 and 2011, in which 3,000 people died. In 2020, 100 people were killed during protests.

Ahead of the election, the government put restrictions on any gatherings except for those connected with the five parties contesting the election, and deployed more than 40,000 security personnel across the country.

Who is contesting the election besides Ouattara?

The four candidates challenging Ouattara include Simone Gbagbo, 76, the wife of Laurent Gbagbo and thus a former first lady, and Jean-Louis Billon, 60, a former commerce minister under Ouattara.

The other two are Ahoua Don Mello, a former ally of Laurent Gbagbo, and Henriette Lagou Adjoua, very briefly a minister of social affairs, also under Gbagbo.

None of the four, who have all promised to create new jobs and establish new agricultural policies, have the backing of a major political party, and analysts say they have little chance of winning.

Security, social inequality as main issues

Ivory Coast, the world's major producer of cocoa, is West Africa’s second-largest economy, but 37.5% of its people live in poverty.

Employment is also scarce for young people.

The country also suffers under spill-over violence from the neighboring countries of Mali and Burkina Faso.

To counter this regional instability, Ouattara's government has raised the defense budget since 2022, stationed more troops in northern regions and purchased armored vehicles, from China among other things.

Edited by: Jenipher Camino Gonzalez