Gbagbo resists African demands

IVORY COAST: Ivory Coast’s incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo has said he will reject a demand by African heads of state on Monday that he cede power to his rival Alassane Ouattara or face force.

Four leaders representing West African regional bloc ECOWAS and the African Union are due to meet with Gbagbo to ask him to give up the presidency after a Nov. 28 poll that internationally recognised results showed he lost.

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.

Gbagbo, who has the backing of the country’s top court and the army, has shrugged off pressure to step down and said on state television on the weekend that Ouattara “should not count on foreign armies to come and make him president.”

A Gbagbo spokesman said Gbagbo, who has been in power since 2000, would not agree to leave.

Ivory Coast’s constitutional court, run by a staunch Gbagbo ally, reversed the U.N.-ratified electoral commission results showing a Ouattara win, citing massive evidence of fraud.

Three west African heads of state - Benin’s Boni Yayi, Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma and Cape Verde’s Pedro Pires - will return to Abidjan after an initial trip last week failed to convince Gbagbo to step down.

Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga will join them. “He will be the voice of the African Union,” according to a statement issued by Odinga’s office.

He will seek a peaceful settlement to the election crisis.

Reuters