A solution has been found to a dispute over the mandate of the Côte d’Ivoire Parliament, a row that sparked violent protests a fortnight ago in the restive West African country, South African mediators said on Tuesday.
”The issue of the national assembly has already been addressed from what account we have gotten, both from the prime minister, as well as from the president this [Tuesday] morning,” South Africa’s Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota said.
President Laurent Gbagbo’s office announced last week that the parliamentary mandate, which expired last month, had been extended despite a call from a United Nations-backed group mediating in the conflict for it to be ended during a peace process.
Lekota was leading a delegation sent to Abidjan on Tuesday by the African Union’s special mediator to Côte d’Ivoire, South African President Thabo Mbeki, to follow up on progress towards ending the crisis in the cocoa-rich West African country split in two since a 2002 rebellion.
Lekota said the main focus of the mediators was now to follow up on the developments in resolutions already reached ”so as to identify those areas of Ivory Coast’s problem which might require mediation”.
”We came here at the instance of mediator to consult with the various stakeholders on the current situation of Côte d’Ivoire, especially with the prime minister, to see how we can assist the process to advance to resolution, which means we must advance to elections,” he said.
According to a timetable drawn up in consultation with international mediators, Côte d’Ivoire’s prime minister is to ensure the country holds general elections by October this year.
Lekota spoke after meeting President Laurent Gbagbo and Prime Minister Konan Banny.
He was scheduled to hold discussions with the UN electoral chief in Côte d’Ivoire, Portuguese Antonio Monteiro.
Mbeki’s envoys are expected on Wednesday to meet representatives of the Côte d’Ivoire’s ruling party (FPI) and the main opposition parties.
They are also scheduled to travel to the rebel stronghold of Bouake to meet with rebel leader Guillaume Soro but the opposition said it ”will not be available for this meeting”.
Lekota was nevertheless optimistic.
”This mediation team will meet some of the other political participants, we want to meet all of them, and we are hoping to travel to Bouake tomorrow [Wednesday] to consult also with New Forces,” he said.
The New Forces, a key rebel group in Côte d’Ivoire, on Sunday rejected Gbagbo’s decision to extend the mandate of the Parliament, saying it was null and void.
The South African mission was decided and agreed upon last Saturday during Banny’s visit to Pretoria and two weeks after an international working group on Côte d’Ivoire decided against the extension of the mandate of the country’s Parliament.
The decision by an international working group monitoring the peace process in Côte d’Ivoire triggered a wave of violent protests across the country by a youth movement and groups of militias aligned to Gbagbo resulting in the withdrawal of UN peacekeepers and aid groups operating in the west of the country.
Members of UN agencies were on Monday assessing the security situation in the west in the aftermath of the clashes. – Sapa-AFP