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Ouattara camp warns of return to Ivory Coast war

03 December 2010 23:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. The camp of Ivorian presidential challenger Alassane Ouattara vowed on Friday to reject any legal move to overturn provisional poll results giving him victory, warning of a possible return to civil war, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
The world’s top cocoa grower was plunged into uncertainty on Thursday after the constitutional council, whose chief is close to President Laurent Gbagbo, said it did not recognize provisional results and would rule on the outcome within days.
"We will not recognize any decisions by the constitutional council taken under such conditions," Amadou Gon, senior member of Ouattara’s campaign, told a media conference.
Referring to Paul Yao N’dre, the staunch Gbagbo ally who presides over the council, a second Ouattara aide warned of the consequences of overturning the results.
"By doing that they will cement the division of the country ... If Yao N’Dre does it he will be to blame for the next war in Ivory Coast," said the aide, Jeannot Ahoussou.
After many delays, the election commission said on Thursday that former IMF official Ouattara had won the November 28 run-off with 54.1 percent of the vote compared with 45.9 percent for Gbagbo.
However Gbagbo’s allies, who allege mass vote-rigging in the rebel-held north, said the results were invalid as the commission missed by one day the deadline for publication -- an argument the constitutional council swiftly upheld.
It now has seven days to rule on the election.
The long-delayed election was meant to reunite a country split into north and south by a 2002-2003 war, but instead it has reopened those divisions, with reports of up to 16 shot dead by security forces in violence since the run-off.
Rebel forces in the north had in principle agreed to disarm as part of the peace process before the vote but they remain in control of the north and many have not given up their weapons.
Cocoa futures, which leapt more than 4 percent on Thursday on fears of disrupted supplies, ticked higher still on Friday with the March London contract up 0.21 percent to 1,927 pounds a tone.
Ivory Coast’s $2.3 billion Eurobond, a bellwether of recovery hopes for what used to be one of the region’s star performing economies, yielded 10.9 percent early on Friday, up from pre-vote levels of below 10 percent.
NO RESULTS ON STATE TV
Diplomats said the fact the electoral commission managed to publish the figure -- rather than allowing it to go under wraps to the Constitutional Council for a final ruling -- would make any attempt to tamper with the score more difficult.
State TV has not broadcast the results. It has recycled old footage of two relatively unknown observer missions listing problems during voting in the north and the council head saying the election commission’s results were not valid.
Leaders of the United States, France and the United Nations have called on candidates to respect the will of the people. The U.S. State Department noted Ouattara’s provisional score and the fact that international observers had deemed the vote fair.
But Gbagbo’s campaign manager Pascal Aff N’Guessan told Reuters they had no right to do so.
"Everyone needs to understand that the Constitutional Council is the institution with the competence to proclaim the definitive results from this election. No one can say a candidate has won except the constitutional court," he said.