ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — A top ally of the man widely recognized as Ivory Coast’s president said incumbent Laurent Gbagbo is using stalling tactics to stay in power and urged the international community Saturday to intervene with “legitimate force” to remove him.
Meanwhile, Gbagbo supporters who were called on to remove Alassane Ouattara from the Golf Hotel on New Year’s morning failed to materialize as U.N. Bangladeshi riot police guarded the hotel’s entryway in full crowd-control attire.
Ouattara’s prime minister, Guillaume Soro, said Saturday that Gbagbo would leave power only by force and that the international community will have to intervene to protect democracy in Africa. He said Gbagbo’s offer to invite an international investigation into the country was only a delaying tactic.
“It was this same type of distracting proposition that he used to hold on for five years without an election,” Soro said. “Enough is enough. Mr. Gbagbo must leave power.”
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who holds the rotating presidency of ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, is due in Abidjan on Monday to negotiate Gbagbo’s departure.
ECOWAS threatened to use military force to remove Gbagbo if he doesn’t leave freely, but its first delegation failed to persuade him to go into exile when it visited the Ivory Coast last week.
In New York City on Saturday, the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon spoke with Ouattara by telephone and assured him that the international community was working to try to end the stalemate in Ivory Coast.
Ban said he appreciated “the restraint and patience being shown even in the face of provocative acts” and reaffirmed the United Nations’ “principled and unwavering position on upholding the election outcome” that should have put Ouattara in office.
