Côte d’Ivoire’s President Laurent Gbagbo refused once again to approve a key change to the Constitution voted by Parliament which would allow a popular exiled opposition leader to run against him, press reports said on Thursday.
The country’s Parliament voted reluctantly last month to alter Article 35 of the Constitution easing the eligibility conditions for election candidates, in line with a 2003 French-brokered accord designed to reunify the country.
But Gbagbo insists on the amendment going to a referendum, which the opposition and the rebels holding the north of the country say would be impossible to organise under present conditions.
”Some people say I should promulgate Article 35. Nothing will be promulgated,” Gbagbo was quoted as telling a meeting on Wednesday with representatives of the South Bandama region.
The amendment to Article 35 would allow former prime minister Alassane Ouattara — who was barred from the 2000 elections because of doubts over his Ivorian origins — to stand in polls due to take place in October.
”How can I promulgate a proposed law which has not been voted on?” Gbagbo demanded, before asking his opponents, ”Why do you not want to take it to the people?”
The former French colony has been divided since a uprising in 2002 between the mainly Christian south and the rebel-held Muslim majority north, with French and African troops under a United Nations umbrella maintaining a very fragile peace.
South African President Thabo Mbeki, who is trying to mediate on behalf of the African Union, has submitted a five-point peace blueprint that provides for disarmament and restoring a power-sharing government among other issues.
Under the accord signed at Marcoussis in France in January 2003, a government of national unity was formed, but an attack by Gbagbo’s forces on northern positions in November halted any progress.
Gbagbo also called again on the 25 000 rebels to disarm, another key provision of the peace deal that remains elusive.
The rebel New Forces say any disarmament must be reciprocal, something which the president rejects. – Sapa-AFP