Côte d'Ivoire
Ivorian opposition leader sent back to court

afrol News, 30 May - The prominent Ivorian opposition leader and former Prime Minister Alassane Dramane Ouattara, who was denied to stand as a candidate in the tumultuous presidential and parliamentary elections in 2000, was asked to take his take his complaints to court by President Laurent Gbagbo. 

In 2000, the Supreme Court of Côte d'Ivoire two times had barred the popular Ouattara from participating in elections on suspicions that he might be of foreign origin (Burkinabe). Ouattara all the time has maintained he is Ivorian. The Court's decision caused Ouattara's party, the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), to boycott the elections, violent demonstrations leaving hundreds of deaths, national and international protests and a massive election boycott by the voters. 

President Gbagbo yesterday controversially declared on state TV that Ouattara should return to court if he wanted another decision on his nationality question. The political reconciliation process over the last one and a half year had been making progress and was fundamental in the landslide return of foreign financial support. It was supposed that a political decision on Ouattara's nationality "problem" would be found. 

Gbagbo however stated that all these matters had been discussed and dealt with in the national reconciliation forum between the four principal parties of the country at the end of last year. "All has been said and written down. Now it only has to be implemented," the President said, refusing to make a more concrete statement referring to Ouattara. 

According to a report by the French news agency AFP, the reconciliation forum had concluded that Ouattara must return to court to apply for a certificate of nationality. The RDR party had however pleaded for a political decision on Ouattara's nationality, arguing that the Supreme Court had been pressured to make a political decision under the former dictatorship to ban the former PM and favourite candidate to presidency from presenting himself. 

The controversial elections caused massive protests and clashes in Abidjan and the country's Muslim north, where Ouattara has most followers. More than 300 had died as a consequence of the clashes, according to official numbers. 

Also the international community protested strongly against the way the polls were carried out. The European Union (EU), the Organisation of African Unity, the UN Secretary-General and several countries suspended their technical electoral assistance to Côte d'Ivoire's government as a result of the Supreme Court's ruling. There was a widespread international appeal for repeated elections that would allow Ouattara to stand candidate.

The international outrage also severely delayed the resumption of foreign financial institutions' engagement in Côte d'Ivoire. The EU made the first, minor step one year ago, reacting to a new "democratic progress in Côte d'Ivoire, especially the organisation of open and transparent municipal elections on 25 March 2001." The 2001 municipal elections were the first where Ouattara's party participated, and won. The EU thus demanded a "national reconciliation process, dialogue between political parties, and the neutrality of the judiciary" to return to a full engagement in the country.

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