A senior American diplomat has called on incumbent Côte d’Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo to “do the mature, statesmanlike thing” and accept electoral defeat, or face personal sanctions.
“If Gbagbo does not step down, he faces travel bans on himself, his, wife, his family and his personal entourage,” US Deputy Secretary of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, told African journalists on Thursday.
“The era of stealing African elections is over,” Carson added.
Gbagbo continues to cling to power in Côte d’Ivoire where, bizarrely, both he and election rival Alassane Ouattara have both been sworn in as president.
Côte d’Ivoire first went to the polls on October 31, and then a second round run-off on November 28.
Côte d’Ivoire’s Election Council released provisional results showing that Ouattara had won 54,1% of the run-off vote to Gbagbo’s 45,9%.
But Gbagbo challenged the results in the Constitutional Council, which annulled some results from Ouattara’s northern stronghold, and declared Gbagbo the winner with 51% of the vote.
Six days after the poll, on December 4, both Gbagbo and Ouattara were sworn in as president at separate ceremonies.
But Carson said the US rejects a Kenya-style power-sharing agreement.
“We have substantial and undisputed evidence that Ouattara won. We did not have similar information of a detailed nature in Kenya,” he said.
“Our experience in Ivory Coast again emphasises the value of international monitoring to certify the legitimacy of election results,” Carson added.
This week, international condemnation of Gbagbo poured in, with many governments recognising Ouattara as president.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has suspended Côte d’Ivoire but Gbagbo continues to enjoy the support of the Ivory Coast military, and is refusing to stand down.
The elections were billed as a chance to heal the country, once a beacon of prosperity in the region, but divided between Muslim north and Christian south following a mutiny by northerners against Gbagbo’s government in 2002.