Laurent Gbagbo began his sixth year as president of Côte d’Ivoire on Monday in the face of fierce objections from the country’s armed and unarmed opposition, who are demanding he stand down.
”I will never allow the decapitation of the state of Côte d’Ivoire,” Gbagbo told the nation in a televised address late on Sunday following a massive rally by thousands of opponents demanding he quit office in line with the expiration of his five-year mandate.
”The president of the republic will carry on guaranteeing the continuity of the state … until elections are held,” he said.
Gbagbo has been given a new lease of life by the African Union and the United Nations, who have approved a 12-month extension of his mandate so that elections could be held.
Polls were due to take place on Sunday but were cancelled because thousands of northern rebels and southern loyalist militants remain in arms.
A sheaf of political reforms outlined in a January 2003 peace pact have yet to be implemented and the country remains divided, shorn of infrastructure and a functional nationwide government.
The 12-month extension is also designed to allow for large-scale disarmament to take place and for new election laws to be drafted.
Gbagbo said on Sunday that he hoped the elections would take place before the end of the 12-month period, ”a mission (I) would entrust to the new prime minister, who is to be designated within the next couple of days”.
State daily Fraternite Matin, citing sources close to the Presidency, reported on Monday that presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, both of whom are heavily implicated in Côte d’Ivoire’s mediation, would arrive on Wednesday to help choose the new prime minister.
The meeting was postponed from last week following the death of Obasanjo’s wife, Stella.
Names most often cited as the possible new head of government include Charles Konan Banny, current head of the West African Central Bank; former single ruling-party minister Lambert Konan; current Defence Minister Rene Amani; and the current Prime Minister, Seydou Diarra.
On Sunday, the New Forces rebels, who control the north of the country, declared that their leader, Guillaume Soro, was to be the next ”prime minister of the future government of national reconciliation”, judging Gbagbo’s presidential mandate to be ”well and truly over”.
Whoever is named to the post will have not only the internal struggles within the world’s top cocoa producer to deal with, but also the continued impact of the Ivorian crisis on troubled West Africa.
Rights group Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Saturday that the government was recruiting children alongside hundreds of other former combatants from western neighbour Liberia’s civil war.
The claims mark the third intensive recruitment period of Liberia’s former fighters in the last year to bear arms on behalf of the Ivorian government, Human Rights Watch said. — Sapa-AFP