Gbagbo allows rivals to run

2005-05-06 22:48

Abidjan - Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has signed an order permitting rivals including former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, to stand in October 30 polls in the country split in two by civil war since 2002.

"The president of the republic has decided by executive order that all candidates presented by signatories to the Linas-Marcoussis accords are eligible to stand in the October 2005 presidential election," state television said late on Thursday.

Ouattara's presidential candidacy has been a sticking point in the tensions dividing Ivory Coast between rebel north and loyalist south since a failed coup in September 2002 plunged the country into all-out war.

The signing comes 10 days after Gbagbo announced he would make good on a suggestion by his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki, mediator on behalf of the African Union, to throw open the polls as mandated under the peace pact reached in January 2003 to end the civil war.

The Linas-Marcoussis pact, still largely unimplemented, has been followed by two subsequent peace accords to reconcile the divided west African state, the latest of which was reached in Pretoria in early April under Mbeki's supervision.

Ivory Coast's constitutional council and electoral commission have been charged with executing the order, which Gbagbo passed in line with a constitutional provision that provides for executive privilege in matters of extreme urgency.

Ouattara, hugely popular in the rebel-held north and considered an icon by the northern Muslim and immigrant populations, has already declared his intention to run in the October election, having been barred from standing in 2000 over lingering questions about his parentage.

The former prime minister and one-time senior executive at the International Monetary Fund was excluded on the grounds that he was not eligible under a constitutional amendment - written specifically to target him - that required all presidential aspirants to be born to Ivorian-born parents.

He has said he would return from his exile in France to Ivory Coast "two or three months" before the elections, should his security be assured.

In a second decree announced on Thursday, Gbagbo ordered the National Statistics Institute (ISN) to conduct an electoral census, establishing an electoral list and producing voter registration cards.

The opposition has blasted the decision to put voter rolls in the hands of the ISN, charging cronyism.

- AFP