LAST week’s coup in the Côte d’Ivoire is unacceptable even though the new military leader has promised democratic elections “as soon as possible,” Foreign Minister Nkosazana Zuma said on Friday.
However, there was little point in calling for the reinstatement of exiled president Henri Konan Bedie, ousted on December 24, Zuma told reporters after a three-day tour of West Africa.
“We have to work with what is on the ground,” she said. The day after the coup, South Africa and Nigeria jointly called for the immediate restoration of Bedie’s democratically elected government.
Zuma held talks with Côte d’Ivoire’s new military leader General Robert Guei during her tour, which also took her to Nigeria and Mali, where she attended a meeting of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). Guei said he had been asked to lead the country to free elections after the ousted government’s abuse of power, economic mismanagement, rural poverty and the exclusion of certain groups from politics, Zuma said.
But a coup was still unacceptable, she said. “It is obvious that there were problems [in Côte d’Ivoire], but a coup can never replace democratic elections.”
Guei, a former defense chief of staff, had undertaken to hold elections “as soon as possible,” Zuma said, adding: “There is no conflict, he has committed himself to free and fair elections.”
The junta has won the agreement of top politicians from the ousted and opposition parties to join a transitional national unity government it plans to set up within 10 days, to prepare for elections on an unspecified date. The fall of Bedie, in power since 1993, and his departure for Togo on a French helicopter last Sunday was massively welcomed at home, where some described it as the “best Christmas present” Ivorians could have wanted.
International bodies, including the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) have called for the restoration of democracy and constitutional order in Côte d’Ivoire rather than of the head of state. — AFP