Patrick Achi, Spokesperson for the Government of Alassane Ouattara, believes if feedback from the African Union Mission led by Raila Odinga is anything to go by, then it is fair to say that the country’s beleaguered President, Laurent Gbagbo intends using his incumbency as well as every available means to strengthen his hold over the presidency, and might not step down willingly.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Kwami Sefa Kayi on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo Morning show, Mr. Achi alleged that the Constitutional Council pronounced Laurent Gbagbo winner of the polls and President of Cote D’Ivoire because the council is made up of his close allies.
Mr Achi, who doubles as the Minister for Economic Infrastructure, believes Mr. Gbagbo does not want to leave office.
“It seems that former President Gbagbo who lost the elections doesn’t want to step down…A lot of Missions, negotiation missions’ officials came here…from ECOWAS, the last one from the African Union (led by Raila Odinga), who has been trying…to give what was (contained) in the statement of the Heads of State of ECOWAS, ‘Please Former President Gbagbo, you’ve lost the elections, step down peacefully.’ But from what the last Mission of Prime Minister Odinga, he’s showed us, former President Gbagbo doesn’t wanna leave office, he doesn’t want to step down,” he noted.
Prior to the elections, he said, there was a lot of tension because both candidates (Gbagbo and Ouattara) did not trust each other. According to him, whiles the opposition feared that the country’s Constitutional Council were puppeteers in the hands of Laurent Gbagbo, the embattled president did not have faith in the country’s Electoral Commission, because they comprised of too many opposition figures.
“…Everything should have been done to avoid the results been contested and that was what was done. In the electoral process, the candidates didn’t trust each other. Ouattara and Conan Bedie did not trust Gbagbo and were afraid that he will use the Constitutional Council where only his parents and his brothers and family members he put there, to just say that he had won even if he had lost. Gbagbo (on the other hand) was afraid that the Independent Electoral Commission where he thought there were too much opposition party members will also not tell the truth,” he explained.
He described Mr. Gbagbo’s complaints of interference by the United Nations as ridiculous since both candidates had agreed to an arbitrator from the UN before the elections.
“They both went to Pretoria on a negotiation process, with President Mbeki and they all decided that they wanted UN to organize the election and at that period, our brother Kofi Annan was the UN Secretary General. He (Kofi Annan) however, said Gentlemen, we the UN, cannot organize an election for a country where there are institutions so what they could do is to appoint a special representative who will monitor the whole process so that if there are any irregularities, he can play the role of arbitration…its written in the Resolution 1765,” he stressed.
“The person appointed by Kofi Annan certified…the voting list and we all agreed on that. Then we moved on to the first round and after the first round…we went for the second round and because Gbagbo has lost, he started crying foul that the UN is interfering in internal affairs,” he added.
Whiles admitting that there were some complaints of electoral irregularities, Mr. Patrick Achi posited that it will be inappropriate and grossly unfair for the Constitutional Council to cancel almost 600,000 votes areas which happens to be Ouattara’s stronghold just to declare ‘friend’ Gbagbo the president, adding that it will be like ‘stealing the election for one person.’
He proffered that, it will be better if the elections in Cote D’Ivoire are re-run than out-rightly cancelled just to curry favour with Gbagbo.
“The role of the Constitutional Council is not to go and cancel all votes in all regions because there were irregularities. You look at the locality where the irregularities (occurred or the voting booths were taken away and just cancelled them if you want to. But the law does not give power to the President or the Constitutional council to cancel about 500,000 votes out of 7 regions of the country where you have 19 regions…If you have to do so, then you just cancel the whole election and we call for another election. But this is not in his power, according to the law to cancel 500,000 to 600000 votes and just proclaim that Gbagbo has won, this is stealing election. Infact, the law doesn’t say that!…If we keep going on like that, we will never have democracy in Africa,” he stated.
“Take for instance in Ghana, when you had your last election, the difference between Atta Mills and the other candidate was 40,000 votes. Now, if the President of the Constitution Council goes to Atta Mills’ region and says that in one or two states (constituencies) because there were complaints over there, he’s cancelling all the votes; 100,000 votes and says that Atta Mills has lost, would you accept that? But here, because the Army, partly was backing Gbagbo, because he has the state media, we are here in the Golf Hotel surrounded by his Army and he says that he has won, talking everyday on TV and having the army killing people…No one can accept that!” he fumed.