Security officer was killed as tensions rise before the presidential election in the Ivory Coast

In southern Ivory Coast, a paramilitary police officer was killed while on watch. Tensions are rising before the election on Saturday.

A gendarme, or paramilitary police officer, was shot and killed while on patrol in the south of the Ivory Coast on Friday, just days before the presidential poll on Saturday.

Authorities said they still don’t know who attacked, but the area has a history of being a stronghold for the opposition. There have been recent protests there after two major opposition figures, Laurent Gbagbo and Tidjane Thiam, were banned from running in the upcoming election.

Because of this, President Alassane Ouattara’s government has made it illegal for anyone to protest anywhere in the country. There are now four people running against the 83-year-old boss for a controversial fourth term. Their names are Simone Gbagbo, Ahoua Don Mello, Jean-Louis Billon, and Henriette Lagou. The protest ban hasn’t changed the way they hold their campaign events.

Ouattara has put a lot of money into building up the country’s infrastructure since he took office in 2011. But critics say that rising inequality and the rising cost of living have made people even more angry. People who are against him also say that he is too close to France, which used to run Ivory Coast as a colony.