The major election boycott during the October 2000 presidential elections in Cote d’Ivoire sparked a wave of domestic unrest and international pressure that ultimately prevented the incumbent, General Robert Guei, who had been brought out of retirement by the junta that took control of the country during a coup the previous December, from taking office. The two main opposition parties, the Rally of the Republicans (RDR) and the Democratic Party of the Cote d’Ivoire-African Democratic Party (PDCI-RCA), boycotted the presidential elections after prominent candidates were disqualified on the basis of hastily passed pre-election legislation requiring candidates’ parents to have been born in Cote d’Ivoire. Opposition supporters followed the boycott with post-election demonstrations, in which acts of violence occurred, though the bulk of that violence seemed to come from police forces firing on demonstrators. International reaction among democracy promoters including the United States, France, and the EU was decidedly negative. The United States went so far as to declare the elections illegitimate, and France – Cote d’Ivoire's former colonial master – threatened to impose sanctions. Although Guei initially declared himself the winner of the election, international pressure and domestic protests caused him to flee before the results were official, and the sole opposition candidate who was allowed to remain in the race, Laurent Gbagbo of the Ivoirain Popular Front (FPI), was sworn in as president.