Kenya PM named AU lead monitor on Cote d’Ivoire

The African Union has asked Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga to lead its efforts in resolving the political crisis in Cote d’Ivoire, a statement said Monday.

A statement from the AU commission headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia announced the selection of Mr Odinga.

However, the PM will not join a delegation of heads of state from Ecowas -Benin, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde - who travel to Cote d’Ivoire Tuesday to convince Laurent Gbagbo to step aside, his office said.

Instead, Mr Odinga said that he would lead another delegation in case the Ecowas leaders fail to convince Mr Gbagbo to cede power to his challenger Alassane Ouattara.

Mr Odinga now becomes the AU’s point man in efforts to resolve he standoff caused by Mr Gbagbo’s refusal to vacate power despite the AU, EU, the UN, US recognising Mr Ouattara as the winner of the November elections.

The AU Commission chief Jean Ping said he had asked Odinga to "lead the monitoring of the situation in Ivory Coast and bolster the efforts being undertaken" to end the turmoil.

Speaking through his spokesman Dennis Onyango, Mr Odinga said he was not able to travel to Abidjan.

“The PM was not able to join the delegation but he promised that if the delegation does not succeed he will lead another to Ivory Coast and try to stop the country’s slide to chaos,” Mr Onyango said.

“In the meantime he has agreed to use diplomatic connections to focus more attention on Ivory Coast and push for a peaceful end to the conflict in a way that ensures democracy is served,” the statement added.

Mr Odinga was named prime minister in 2008 in a coalition government set up to end weeks of political unrest after a disputed presidential election.

However, the PM has recently called for the forceful removal of Mr Gbagbo, who is in a tussle with rival Ouattara over the country's leadership.

Both men have declared themselves president of the West African nation. Mr Gbagbo enjoys the backing of the country’s army while Mr Ouattara is holed up in a hotel under protection by about 800 UN troops.

The November election was meant to unite the country after a civil war in 2002 split the world's largest cocoa producer in two, with the predominantly Muslim North supporting Mr Ouattara and the mainly Christian south backing Mr Gbagbo.

The West African state's electoral body had announced that Ouattara had beaten the incumbent but the Constitutional Council overturned the results and declared Gbagbo winner.

He was hastily sworn in, despite broad international support for his opponent.

The AU chief also voiced support for the West African bloc ECOWAS' decision to send the presidents of Benin, Sierra Leone and Cape Verde to Abidjan to ask Mr Gbagbo to quit.

Mr Gbagbo has come under increasing international pressure to relinquish power, but has yet to give in. The 53-member AU suspended Cote d’Ivoire on December 6 because of his refusal to stand down.

Some 14,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Liberia following November's disputed election results, and the UN says it is prepared for a total of 30,000 refugees in the region.

In addition, the UN has said at least 173 people have died in violence already.

Mr Gbagbo has demanded that UN and French troops leave the country and a close ally has even warned that they could be treated as rebels if they did not obey the instruction in the wake of their support for Mr Ouattara.

The UN, which has 10,000 peacekeepers in the country, rejected the call.

The choice of Mr Odinga to lead the efforts points to AU’s standpoint, and which it seems not ready to vanquish, that Mr Gbagbo must quit.

Mr Odinga also called for the ouster of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for rigging the elections earning the wrath of the veteran leader.

Eventually, President Mugabe and his rival Morgan Tsvangirai of Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) agreed to form a coalition similar to Kenya's.

However, the Zimbabwe coalition has been shaky, dogged by unending wrangles over power.