IVORY COAST: Prime Minister Guillaume Soro confident international community will help find peaceful resolution to crisis

Record ID: 181783

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Prime Minister Guillaume Soro confident international community will help find peaceful resolution to crisis
  • Date: 4th January 2011
  • Summary: ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST (JANUARY 3, 2011) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF PRESIDENTIAL CLAIMANT ALASSANE OUATTARA'S PRIME MINISTER, GUILLAUME SORO, WALKING WITH HIS SECURITY IN GOLF HOTEL GARDEN (SOUNDBITE) (French) GUILLAUME SORO, OUATTARA'S PRIME MINISTER, SAYING: "All Africans are watching the attitude of the international community with regard to the Ivorian elections. If we fail in the Ivory Coast, it's going to open the door to presidents for life in Africa. That's why we don't have another choice. In our country the president who was elected must exercise his prerogatives." SORO WALKING (SOUNDBITE) (French) GUILLAUME SORO, OUATTARA'S PRIME MINISTER, SAYING: "I have no doubt that the international community will find the means to see to it that the verdict of the polls will be applied in the Ivory Coast." SORO TALKING WITH AN OFFICIAL VARIOUS OF PRO-OUATTARA SOLDIERS, THE NEW FORCES, GUARDING HOTEL GOLF VARIOUS OF SORO AND HIS STAFF WALKING IN GARDEN
  • Embargoed: 19th January 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Cote d'Ivoire
  • Country: Ivory Coast
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA8XZCCUBPN9FHC7TEGA73CP6NE
  • Story Text: The would-be Prime Minister of Ivory Coast presidential claimant, Alassane Ouattara, told journalists on Monday (January 3) that he was confident of a peaceful solution to the political crisis Holed up with the rest of Ouattara's rival government in the lagoon-side Golf Hotel, Guillaume Soro, also said he wanted the international community to help persuade Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo to cede power.
    Failure to do so, Soro said, would threaten democracy throughout the continent.
    Three west African heads of state -- Benin's Boni Yayi, Sierra Leone's Ernest Bai Koroma and Cape Verde's Pedro Pires -- returned to Abidjan on Monday (January 3) after an initial trip last week failed to convince Gbagbo to step down. Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga also joined them.
    At the weekend, ahead of the ECOWAS visit, Soro said that Gbagbo only had a few days left to leave power peacefully.
    But Gbagbo already said on Monday morning that he planned to reject the ECOWAS demand.
    "All Africans are watching the attitude of the international community with regard to the Ivorian elections. If we fail in the Ivory Coast, it's going to open the door to presidents for life in Africa. That's why we don't have another choice. In our country the president who was elected must exercise his prerogatives," Soro said ahead of the talks with the ECOWAS envoys.
    "I have no doubt that the international community will find the means to see to it that the verdict of the polls will be applied in the Ivory Coast," Soro added.
    Fears of an escalation of violence have led more than 18,000 people to leave Ivory Coast for neighbouring Liberia, according to the United Nations.
    More than 170 people have been killed since the start of the standoff in the world's top cocoa grower, which threatens to restart open conflict in the country still split in two by a 2002-03 civil war.
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