ABIDJAN: Pascal Affi N’Guessan, who finished second in last weekend’s Ivory Coast presidential election, on Wednesday accepted his defeat by incumbent President Alassane Ouattara, helping turn the page on a 2011 civil war and years of political turmoil.

Ouattara won a blowout poll victory and a second five-year term with nearly 84 percent of votes cast in Sunday’s poll, according to results announced by the West African nation’s electoral commission early on Wednesday. “I recognise President Ouattara’s victory,” N’Guessan, who won a little over 9 percent, told journalists at his campaign headquarters. “We ran a good campaign, but the best candidate won.”

N’Guessan heads Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), the party of ex-president Laurent Gbagbo whose refusal to accept Ouattara’s win in 2010 sparked the brief post-election conflict, which killed over 3,000 people.