IVORY COAST: Opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara pledges power share

Record ID: 182111

  • Title: IVORY COAST: Opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara pledges power share
  • Date: 12th November 2010
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (French) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ALASSANE OUATTARA SAYING: ''We shall not only win back power for the family of houphouetists, we shall go further by keeping our commitments. To be houphouetist is to keep our commitments to our fellow countrymen but also to ourselves, even through the common management of power in a fair and just distribution of ministerial posts." VARIOUS OF SUPPORTERS CRYING IN MEETING ROOM ''PRESIDENT ADO'' HENRY KONAN BEDIE AND ALASSANE OUATTARA (SOUNDBITE) (French) SPOKEMAN FOR ASSEMBLY OF HOUPHOUETISTS FOR DEMOCRACY AND PEACE(RHDP) ALPHONSE DJEDJE MADY SAYING: "The rally of houphouetists for democracy and peace asks its voters and the Ivory Coast people to mobilize to vote overwhelmingly for the candidate of houphouetists for the democracy and peace, Alassane Outtara." RHDP (ASSEMBLY OF HOUPHOUETISTS FOR DEMOCRACYAND PEACE ) LEADERS GREET THEIR SUPPORTERS IN MEETING ROOM ABIDJAN, IVORY COAST (NOVEMBER 09, 2010) (REUTERS) CANDIDATE PRESIDENT LAURENT GBAGBO ARRIVES AT NEWS CONFERENCE ROOM CANDIDATE PRESIDENT LAURENT GBAGBO AND JOURNALISTS AT NEWS CONFERENCE ROOM OFFICIALS AT NEWS CONFERENCE SOUNDBITE (French) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE LAURENT GBAGBO SAYING: ''We are greatly ahead, therefore greatly favoured. I came to tell the Ivory Coast people to take courage that the end is close, that the victory is close." MORE OF LAURENT GBAGBO (2 SHOTS) SOUNDBITE (French) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE LAURENT GBAGBO SAYING "If you love Bedie, you have to vote for the one who made him return from exile rather than for the one who made him leave for exile." PRESIDENT LAURENT GBAGBO LEAVING NEWS CONFERENCE ROOM MORE OF JOURNALISTS AT NEWS CONFERENCE ROOM
  • Embargoed: 27th November 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAAJ3ST82N5OMDD9ZOTHTOYTIWH
  • Story Text: Ivorian opposition presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara pledged on Wednesday (November 10) to share power with the third-placed candidate in last week's election if their alliance unseats President Laurent Gbagbo in a run-off.
    Ivory Coast will hold the decisive second round of its long-delayed presidential vote on November 28.
    The polls are meant to end years of political deadlock, after a war in 2002 and 2003 split the world's top cocoa grower in two, leaving its north in the hands of rebels and sparking a slow-burn crisis that has hurt growth and deterred investment.
    Results of an October 31 first round put Gbagbo on 38 percent and Ouattara on 32 percent, pushing them through to the next round, with a voter turnout of around 80 percent, one of the highest seen in a genuinely multi-party African election.
    "We promise a fair and just distribution of ministerial portfolios," Ouattara said, saying that this would be done in consultation with Henri Konan Bedie, the man who came third with 25 percent of the vote and has since thrown his weight behind Ouattara.
    Bedie specifically called on Sunday (November 7) for his supporters to back Ouattara, honouring an agreement struck between the two of them before the election.
    But it is not clear whether members of Bedie's large Baoule tribe in the centre and south of the country will want a northerner in power, especially one who has been accused of backing the rebellion, despite his repeated denials.
    Working in Ouattara's favour, some analysts say, is Baoule resentment of Gbagbo for perceived failures to bring development to their areas. Land tensions between the Baoule and Gbagbo's Bete tribe could also help the challenger.
    "There's a big part of the Baoule who could vote for him (Ouattara) because they don't want Gbagbo," Venance Konan, a popular Ivorian author who has published novels and short stories about the Baoule and Ivory Coast's crisis, told Reuters.
    "Baouleland has got a lot poorer in the past ten years (since Gbagbo has been in power)," Konan added.
    Gbagbo told a news conference that included journalists as well as a large number of his supporters that he was confident of victory.
    "We are greatly ahead, therefore greatly favoured," he said on Tuesday (November 9) to cheers.
    He appealed to Bedie voters not to support Ouattara, whom he accused of being involved not only in the 2002 rebellion against him, but also of being behind the 1999 coup by General Robert Guei that deposed Bedie, a charge Ouattara denies.
    "If you love Bedie, vote for the one who brought him back from exile, not for the one who put him in exile," he said.
    Markets appear unsure about whether Ivory Coast can put its chaotic past behind it, with international cocoa prices failing to react to the elections so far.
    The country's $2.3 billion 2032 Eurobond has traded with a yield of just under 10 percent since the Oct. 31 first round passed off peacefully, but sceptics note a lot more will be at stake in the second round and tensions higher.
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