Cote d'lvoire dissolves government, electoral commission amid tensions
Date 2010/2/21 12:39:57 | Topic: Afran
| ABIDJAN, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Cote d'Ivoire President Laurent Gbagbo on Friday dissolved the government and the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) in the culmination of tensions over the alleged voter list fraud, a setback on the electoral process approaching the planned polls.
"The government is dissolved," Gbagbo announced in a speech on national television, citing the provisions of Article 48 of the Constitution.
This article provides that in a case "where there is a serious and immediate threat to national institutions, the independence of the nation, integrity of territorial boundaries or the country's execution of international commitments, the Republic's president should take exceptional measures."
Gbagbo declared that this decision was meant to "take away all obstacles from the peaceful process and allow Cote d'lvoire to hold proper elections in total confidence," and he also admitted that "the electoral process has broken down."
"I direct that Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, in performance of his functions, should propose to me a new government as from Monday February 15, 2010," the president said.
Gbagbo noted that "Cote d'lvoire deserved a government that will help her to completely get out of the crisis, give services to all Ivorians and not one which will be serving political parties."
"The mission of that government will be to take all necessary measures to ensure that Cote d'lvoire is completely out of the crisis," he pledged.
Under the newly announced presidential decree, the prime minister will also have to propose "within the next seven days a format of the new and credible electoral commission which will organize free and fair elections."
This decision came in the wake of a dispute over the electoral commission. The presidential camp had condemned the fraud within CEI, demanding the resignation of its president Robert Beugre Mambe. With the backing from the opposition, Mambe had stood against the pressure, vowing not to step down.
The decision also came only a day after talks in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, between the representatives of the presidential camp and the opposition with President Blaise Compaore, who is the facilitator in the inter-Ivorian dialogue. On Thursday, Mambe reiterated his determination not to resign at a meeting with Compaore.
The presidential election, which has been postponed several times, was supposed to be held between late February and early March. But for weeks, the electoral process has been threatened by violence amid the standoff.
The decision taken by courts to take some people of the electoral list has resulted into bloody confrontations and destruction in several towns.
The ex-rebel movement, the New Forces (FN), indicated on Tuesday that "Rwanda like scenes are likely to repeat in Cote d'lvoire," warning of the specter of civil war, which ended just several years ago.
On Wednesday, the government decided to suspend "until further notice" the judicial process to resolve the issue in a bid to prevent the trouble from further deteriorating.
Analysts say that Gbagbo's decision to dissolve the government and CEI came out of the need to calm down the situation, as the CEI chief and the Interior Ministry were taking the center stage in the crisis. It was at the order of the Interior Ministry, the judiciary system launched the probe into the controversial cases and made the ruling against Mambe.
While the presidential camp accused Mambe of wrongly putting suspected names on the voter list in favor of the FN, the opposition charged the ruling party with a "delay tactic" to abort another election. Observers are closely monitoring the situation after the dissolution of both CEI and the government.
Cote d'Ivoire plunged into a civil war after an attempted coup in 2002. The West African country remains divided since the end of the war a year later. In 2007, the government which controls the south signed a peace accord with the FN, whose leader Soro was then named the prime minister. But differences have never disappeared over an election to end the crisis. As a result, the polls have been repeatedly postponed since 2005, when Gbagbo's tenure expired.
The UN peacekeeping mission has made a strong call for both sides to hold the long-awaited elections in the first half of the year if not between late February and early March.
|
|