Côte d’Ivoire rebels holding the north of the country said on Friday they want a ”bold decision” from a West African regional summit in Nigeria to end the mandate of embattled President Laurent Gbagbo.
Guillaume Soro, secretary general of the New Forces (FN), said the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) should endorse a transitional period of government without Gbagbo, who is boycotting Friday’s summit, at its top.
In an interview during a three-day visit to African Union headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Soro accused Gbagbo of failing to implement measures called for in the three-year-old, French-brokered peace deal.
”After three years of shuffling since the signing of the Linas Marcoussi agreement, the whole political class expects a bold decision from the Ecowas summit to impose a political transition on Laurent Gbagbo,” he said.
”For three years, Laurent Gbagbo has not implemented any legal reforms,” Soro said. ”The political class is in agreement that Laurent Gbagbo is disqualified.”
”The peace path in Côte d’Ivoire should be a political transition headed by a unanimously accepted leader,” he said, calling on Ecowas to endorse a 14- to 18-month transitional government headed by a neutral party to oversee elections.
Soro’s visit comes ahead of a meeting next week in Addis Ababa between leaders of the members of the AU’s Peace and Security Council and Ecowas to discuss the Ivorian crisis following Friday’s West African summit in Abuja.
Gbagbo, whose term ends on October 30 but has vowed to remain in office until elections are held, has refused to attend the Abuja meeting and is rejecting Ecowas mediation in the crisis, arguing it has failed thus far to achieve results.
A presidential election had been set for next month but has been postponed, with Gbagbo saying in a televised address to the nation on Tuesday that polls cannot be held while national unity is endangered.
The West African state has been divided in two since a September 2002 failed coup and subsequent armed uprising by rebels who now control the north of the country. — Sapa-AFP