POLITICS-COTE D’IVOIRE: Mediators Push for October Presidential Poll

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Fulgence Zamble

ABIDJAN, Jul 11 2005 (IPS) - Under pressure from an increasingly demanding and exasperated international community, Laurent Gbagbo, Cote d’Ivoire’s head of state, has set Oct. 30 as the date for new presidential election.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is mediating the Ivorian conflict, also favours election in October, according to official reports of his latest meeting with Ivorian belligerents in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, June 29.

Gbagbo’s party, the Popular Ivorian Front (FPI), believes the poll will end the country’s crisis, which was sparked by a mutiny by renegade soldiers in 2002. The rebellion resulted in the split of the country in two: the north is occupied by rebels, while the north is held by pro-government forces.

FPI president, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, accused the Ivorian opposition parties of plotting to push the election date forward.

”We know that the opposition, in league with the rebels, is doing everything in its power to postpone the date. But we will make good on the bet. There is still time to review the voter rolls. All that’s left is for the rebels to disarm, and if they do, everything will go off very smoothly,” he told IPS.

The starting date for the demobilisation of pro-government militias and rebel combatants was pushed to the end of July from June 27. But, to the chagrin of Ivorians, another new deadline has been set for Aug. 20 for the disarmament of pro-government militias. The two warring armies were invited to meet and set a new date to begin disarming their combatants.

In a bid to push the peace process forward, the African Union (AU) summit, which ended in Syrte, Libya last week, called upon the Ivorian parliament to pass bills to address the contentious issues of nationality, rural land ownership and access to television and radio broadcasts by July 15.

”Holding free and transparent elections in Cote d’Ivoire should put an end to the cycle of violence this country has gone through since the turbulent rise to power of its first president, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, in December 1960,” said a West African diplomat who requested anonymity.

All Ivorian political parties have agreed that the National Institute of Statistics (INS) organise the presidential poll. They took the decision during their meeting in Pretoria on June 29. Only two months earlier, the opposition expressed suspicions of INS-bias in favour of Gbagbo.

The main actors in the conflict also asked the African Union to impose sanctions on parties that refuse to implement the accord signed in Pretoria on April 6. That includes the disarming of the militias.

But suspicion remains. ”We know that President Gbagbo wants to rig the election. He’s giving most of the organising duties to the INS, which is an abuse of Article 48 of the constitution. It’s unacceptable,” Anaky Kobenan, president of the Movement of Forces for the Future, told IPS. ”We are demanding a transitional government without Gbagbo.”

A June 25 edition of the daily ”Le Patriote”, which is close to former prime minister Alassane Ouattara’s Union of Republicans (RDR), proposed that the Catholic bishop of Yamoussoukro, Ahouana Paul Simeon, head the transition. The duration of the transition was not specified, though some unconfirmed reports said the proposal was for two years.

Others, who expressed themselves on condition that their names not be revealed, mentioned the name of Charles Konan Banny, an Ivorian who is the current governor of the Central Bank of West African States, as a likely interim leader and presidential candidate. Both individuals have yet to comment on the proposal, which itself has not been officially confirmed.

For its part, the Democratic Party of Cote d’Ivoire of former president Henri Konan Bedie, expressed support for the Oct. 30 election through its general secretary, Alphonse Djedje Mady. The party was swept from office on Dec. 1999 when a violent takeover brought General Robert Guei to power. Guei was assassinated during the initial hours of the Sept. 19, 2002 coup attempt.

Francis Wodie, president and founder of the Ivorian Workers Party, appears fed up of the current political bickering. ”The actors do not want peace. Each of them wants only one thing: the electoral process to come out in his favour,” he said.

After Oct. 30, if the election did not take place, ”there will be a constitutional vacuum”. At that moment, said Wodie, he fears army intrusion into the political debate. ”A takeover by force could ensue,” he warned.

But, on both sides, campaign committees are being set up in all regions of the country, as well as support committees for the candidates.

Another worrying development is the admittance by the INS that it would be impossible to organise and hold the election on Oct. 30, as scheduled. On June 22, the institute’s president, Mathieu Meleu, said: ”we don’t have all the pieces together that we need to hold elections in Cote d’Ivoire”.

Even if INS officials take two weeks to review voter registration lists, 40 percent of the country’s territory, under occupation of the former rebels, the Forces Nouvelles, will remain off limit to electoral officials, he emphasised.

Article 48 of the Ivorian constitution stipulates that if the territorial integrity of Cote d’Ivoire is in immediate or serious danger, and that if the regular operations of constitutional authorities have been disrupted, the head of state may, in such an instance, use this provision to postpone, say, an election.

On the financial level, not even half of the 15 million dollars needed to organise the poll has been disbursed to the INS, an institute member, who asked to remain anonymous, revealed.

The Forces Nouvelles, which occupy the northern half of the country, seem unconcerned with the election controversy. Arguing that they took up arms to establish democracy through transparent elections, they refuse to disarm to enable civil authorities to be deployed into their zones.

The fact that their demand for RDR leader Ouattara’s candidacy for president has been accepted has not changed their minds. On June 27, they rejected all calls to begin the disarmament process.

The former rebels are demanding that new laws be adopted in accordance with the Marcoussis, France, treaties, signed in Jan. 2003. They are also demanding the dismantling of the militias and full implementation of the Pretoria accords.

At last week’s AU summit in Libya they were asked to exercise political maturity and flexibility