Ivory Coast backs new constitution in landslide vote, opposition cries foul

An opposition-boycotted referendum to change Ivory Coast's constitution has easily passed, electoral officials said Tuesday, but opponents swiftly dismissed the vote as fraudulent.

President Alassane Ouattara said the changes were necessary to help end years of instability linked to disputes over national identity while critics labelled the vote an attempt to line up a successor for when his term ends in 2020.

The "Yes" camp won 93 % of votes cast in Sunday Oct 30,2016 's constitutional referendum, but most eligible voters stayed at home, following the opposition call to boycott, with the official turnout rate put at just over 42 %

An opposition leader quickly dismissed the official results as "fake".

The package, put to the coubtry's 6.3 million voters, also includes creating a post of vice president as well as a senate, a third of whom would be appointed by the head of state.

The measures have alarmed opposition leaders and prompted accusations that Ouattara is trying to instal a sympathetic successor.

"More than 90 %... of Ivorians have understood the need to turn the page on our shameful ways," Joel N'Guessan Joel N'Guessan, spokesman for Ouattara's Rally of Republicans Party (RDR), told AFP.

The 42 % turnout rate was "honourable," he added.

But Pascal Affi Nguessan, head of the opposition Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), said the election results were "obviously faked".