Gbagbo’s rivals vow to push him out of power
Alassana Dramane Ouattara (left), candidate for the Rassemblement Démocratique pour la République, (RDR) for the presidential elections greets the crowd of sympathisers during an electoral campaign through the streets of Abidjan on October 29, 2010. AFP | PHOTO.
ABIDJAN, Saturday
Laurent Gbagbo’s rivals for power in Cote d’Ivoire vowed to win control of the country within days as the squeeze on him to end his 10-year reign after disputed polls tightened on Saturday.
With world powers freezing him out as he clings on, Gbagbo had reportedly given the first sign he was ready to “sit down and talk” with his rival Alassane Ouattara. But the rival camp showed no sign of compromise.
“By next week I will be moved into my offices as the country’s prime minister,” said Guillaume Soro, the former rebel whom Ouattara has named to head his government, at a news conference on Friday.
“The process under way to settle this is irreversible,” he said, making no comment on the reports quoting Gbagbo.
On Saturday Ivorian newspapers, many of them fiercely partisan, were crammed with rival theories of how the power struggle was playing out behind the scenes. The moderate daily L’Inter called it a “chess game”.
On one side of the board stands Gbagbo, running his loyalist government from the presidential palace in Abidjan, with nominal control of the army and the mainly Christian south with its key ports, cocoa fields and oil facilities.
On the other is Alassane Ouattara, the ex-prime minister and International Monetary Fund executive from the largely Muslim rebel-held north, who declares himself president based on a UN-endorsed vote-count from last month’s polls.
“With every day that passes, Gbagbo and Ouattara push their pawns further, each hoping to beat his opponent,” L’Inter said.
Despite his entrenched position, Gbagbo faces huge pressure to quit from powers including the UN Security Council and African Union, and reports said he had shown signs of moving to ease the potentially violent standoff.
“Let’s sit down and talk,” he was quoted as saying by papers including state daily Fraternite Matin on Friday.
But Soro, 38, who was formerly Gbagbo’s prime minister under a peace deal, played for advantage. He called on soldiers and civil servants to stop working for Gbagbo, whom he accused of an “institutional coup d’etat”.
Soro has several thousand northern New Forces (FN) troops behind him and has warned they could mobilise if Gbagbo does not budge, but stressed he was seeking a peaceful solution.
The United States has threatened Gbagbo with sanctions and is working with other countries “to put additional pressure on the existing government”, State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said.
