Ivory Coast: President sacks government

  1. Posted on Monday 15 February 2010 - 10:35
    KingsleyKobo
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    Kingsley Kobo, AfricaNews reporter in Abidjan, Ivory Coast
    Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo has dissolved both the unity government and the electoral commission, causing general panic in the West African country. In a radio and television message, Gbagbo said he was sacking the institutions to allow the country to move forward towards holding free and fair elections.
    Gbagbo
    He asked Prime Minister Soro Guillaume, a former rebel chief, to form a new government and propose a new format by which a new electoral commission would be formed.

    The president’s party FPI has been accusing the electoral commission and calling for the resignation of its president Robert Mambé Beugré for allegedly injecting 429, 000 new names on the voter’s list. But Beugré says he never committed any act of fraud.

    Ivorian political protagonists were received in Burkina Faso by crisis mediator, President Blaise Campaoré to resolve the contentions between the presidential camp and the opposition bloc, who reaffirms their support for Beugré, accusing in turn President Gbagbo for using this issue to delay once again the presidential elections.

    The meeting in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou ended without a solution, prompting Gbagbo’s unilateral decision to squash the institutions.

    The opposition has not reacted to this decision and nobody knows what will happen next in the politically fragile world’s cocoa and coffee highest producing nation.

    The streets in Abidjan were quickly deserted after the president’s radio / TV broadcast.

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