Supporters of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo, who lives in exile in Brussels after losing a civil war in 2011, said Wednesday that they would file a candidacy in his name for October’s election. The announcement comes a day after an Ivorian court confirmed the decision to strike off the ex-leader from the electoral list due to a 20-year prison sentence.

A pro-Gbagbo coalition called Together for Democracy and Sovereignty said in a statement “it will submit president Laurent Gbagbo’s candidacy, in line with scheduled procedures”.

But a day earlier, a court in Ivory Coast confirmed the decision of the country’s electoral commission to strike off Gbagbo from the electoral list, his lawyer told AFP Tuesday. “It’s a definitive no,” Claude Mentenon told AFP, adding that there was no further legal recourse inside Ivory Coast.

Election officials had already rejected appeals by Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to compete in the October 31 presidential election, in which the incumbent Alassane Ouattara is running for re-election.

Any candidate convicted of crime automatically struck from list

President of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), Ibrahime Coulibaly-Kuibiert, said back in August, when the revised electoral list was revealed, that anyone convicted of a crime would be struck from the list of candidates.

Four contenders in all were barred from standing in the election on those grounds.

The world’s top cocoa grower remains scarred by a brief civil war that erupted after 2010 elections, when Gbagbo, then president, refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara. Months of ensuing violence claimed around 3,000 lives.

Gbagbo, who is currently living in Belgium, was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity. The prosecution has appealed that ruling.

But he was sentenced in absentia to a 20-year term last November for the “looting” of the local branch of the Central Bank of the West African States (BCEAO) during the post-election crisis.

In theory at least, he could be jailed on his return, which makes any return to Ivory Coast a sensitive political issue three months before the presidential election.

The 2020 presidential elections were already set to be tense, after years of political turbulence.

Violence that followed Ouattara’s announcement that he is seeking a third term has claimed at least eight lives in August.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

The European Union has suspended its training missions in Mali after the military coup this month that removed President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita from power, EU officials said on Wednesday.

The two missions training Mali’s army and police as part of international efforts to stabilize Mali and extend the state’s authority are frozen because they were designed to support “the legitimate national authorities,” one EU official said.

Officials said the suspension was temporary. West African mediators and Mali’s coup leaders are discussing the possibility of a transitional government, which could allow the EU to eventually resume training in partnership with the United Nations.

 The coup has raised the prospects of further political turmoil in Mali which, like other countries in the region, is facing an expanding threat from Islamist militants.

 EU defense ministers meeting in Berlin on Wednesday will discuss the situation in Mali, the officials said.

Drawn up in late 2012 to help Mali’s army regain control of the country after France drove out militants in the north, the EU military mission (EUTM Mali) has more than 600 soldiers from 28 European countries including EU and non-member states.

 Its headquarters in Mali’s capital Bamako was targeted by militants in 2016, although no personnel were hurt.

 The EU agreed in 2014 an additional civilian mission (EUCAP Sahel Mali), sending experts to give advice and training to the internal security forces in Mali, the police, Gendarmerie and National Guard.

 EU training will continue in neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso, officials said.

(Source: Agencies)

The international community increased pressure on the military junta that has seized power in Mali, as the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) suspended the nation from its membership Tuesday.

Its leadership agreed the move at an extraordinary session held via videoconference, while adding that it would maintain any cooperation that would help the civilian population and a transition to democracy.

The decision came a day after envoys from the West African bloc ECOWAS and the new military rulers said they had failed to agree on a timetable to return Mali to democratic rule.

The OIF also called for the liberation of the ousted president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who stepped down from power last week after the military revolt, saying he wanted to avoid bloodshed.

And they called for the establishment, as soon as possible, of “a transition government led by an civilian authority”. The OIF said it would be sending a high-delegation to Mali in the coming days.

The international community has already condemned the August 18 coup and ECOWAS has suspended Mali from its ranks.

ECOWAS has so far taken the lead in the international community in trying to negotiate a timetable for a return to civilian rule with the country’s new military leaders.

But both sides said Monday they had failed to reach agreement — and also that Keita no longer wanted to be restored to be power, which had been one of the initial demands made by ECOWAS.

Keita was elected in 2013 after running a campaign in which he pitched himself as a unifying force in a fractured country.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2018 but failed to make headway against the jihadists, and the ethnic unrest they ignited in the centre of the country further damaged an already sickly economy.

An outcry over the results of long-delayed legislative elections in April cemented his unpopular reputation, and in June a protest movement was born aimed at forcing him to resign.

Source: AFP

West African envoys resumed talks with Mali’s new military rulers on Monday as the junta denied it had decided on a three-year blueprint for restoring civilian rule.

Colonel Ismael Wague, spokesman for the rebel officers who seized power last Tuesday, insisted that the transition remained undecided as the third day of talks with the regional bloc ECOWAS got underway.

“I want to make clear at this stage of discussions with the ECOWAS mediation team that nothing has been decided,” he said at the defence ministry in Bamako.

“At no point have we talked about military-majority government,” he said.

“Any decision relating to the scale of the transition, the transition president, the formation of the government will be done among Malians” and be followed by “mass consultation,” he said.

ECOWAS flew a high-level mission to Bamako on Saturday led by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan, four days after mutinying troops seized power and detained 75-year-old President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The coup sent shockwaves among Mali’s neighbours, which fear that the country – already beset by a jihadist insurgency and moribund economy – could spiral into chaos.

A source in the visiting delegation on Sunday said the junta “has affirmed that it wants a three-year transition to review the foundations of the Malian state. This transition will be directed by a body led by a soldier, who will also be head of state.

“The government will also be predominantly composed of soldiers” under the proposal, the source said on condition of anonymity.

Additionally, a junta official confirmed to AFP that “the three-year transition would have a military president and a government mostly composed of soldiers.”

ECOWAS reaction

This timeframe contrasts with the junta’s vow, within hours of taking over on August 18, that elections would be held within a “reasonable” timeframe.

Many Malians took to social media on Monday to attack the transition scheme.

It also compares starkly with demands by the 15-nation ECOWAS – the Economic Community of West African States – for the “immediate return of constitutional order.”

The bloc’s leaders are to confer in a virtual summit on Wednesday as to how to proceed, mindful of Mali’s last coup in 2012, which led to a regional revolt that metastasised into a jihadist insurgency.

They have already decided to close Mali’s borders and issued threats to impose sanctions against the coup leaders.

The bloc has already intervened in several crises in West Africa, including The Gambia, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Keita was elected in 2013 after running a campaign in which he pitched himself as a unifying force in a fractured country.

He was re-elected for a second term in 2018 but failed to make headway against the jihadists, and the ethnic unrest they ignited in the centre of the country further damaged an already sickly economy.

An outcry over the results of long-delayed legislative elections in April cemented his unpopular reputation, and in June a protest movement was born aimed at forcing him to resign.

ECOWAS has stood by Keita and called for him to be restored to office, although this demand has been eclipsed since the start of the talks by the issue of his detention.

Jonathan met Keita on Saturday and said he seemed “very fine”.

The ECOWAS and junta sources said on Monday that Mali’s new rulers had agreed to free the ousted president and that he would be able to return to his home in Bamako.

The coup leaders say they are holding 17 leaders at a barracks about 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the city after releasing two others last week.

Source: AFP

Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara was formally chosen by his party Saturday to run for a third term in an October election, despite opposition charges it is unconstitutional. The decision came a day after election authorities rejected the candidacies of the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, and ex-rebel leader Guillaume Soro.

Ouattara, who has been in power since 2010,  said in March that he would not stand again but changed his position after the death of prime minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly — seen as his anointed successor — in July.

The announcement came a day after the country’s election authorities rejected appeals by Ivory Coast’s former president Laurent Gbagbo and former rebel leader Guillaume Soro to be allowed to run in the country’s October election.

Outtara’s decision to contest a third term in October has already triggered outrage among opposition and civil society groups, who labelled it a “coup” that risked triggering chaos.

The constitution limits presidents to two terms, but 78-year-old Ouattara — who has served two five-year terms since 2010 — and his supporters argue that a 2016 constitutional tweak reset the clock.

His ruling Houphouetist Rally for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party said Ouattara was nominated as its candidate at an event attended by 100,000 people in an Abidjan stadium.

“We remain focused on the election, with a record to defend and a project to propose to Ivorians,” party spokesman Mamadou Touré told AFP, branding the street demonstrations against Ouattara’s candidacy a “dismal failure”.

Rival candidates rejected

On Friday, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) rejected appeals by Gbagbo and Soro to run in the October election.

“The decisions have been posted since the 18th, the CEI has not granted their requests,” Inza Kigbafori, the CEI communications manager, told AFP.

The shock news heightened tensions before October 31 vote, which takes place in the shadow cast by violence following 2010’s election that killed around 3,000 people.

Ivory Coast, one of the world’s biggest producers of coffee and cocoa, is still traumatised by the post-electoral violence after the 2010 vote, when Gbagbo refused to cede to the victor, Ouattara.

Gbagbo was freed conditionally by the International Criminal Court (ICC) after he was cleared in 2019 of crimes against humanity.

His return to Ivory Coast would be sensitive before the presidential election. His Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) party urged him to throw his hat in the electoral ring.

Soro, a former rebel leader, has been forced into self-imposed exile in France in the face of a long list of legal problems at home.

He was a leader in a 2002 revolt that sliced the former French colony into the rebel-held north and the government-controlled south and triggered years of unrest.

He was once an ally of Ouattara, helping him to power during the post-election crisis in 2010. The two eventually fell out.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)

An emergency summit of the West African bloc ECOWAS called Thursday for the reinstatement of Ibrahim Boubacar Keita as Mali’s president after he was deposed in a military coup on Tuesday. West African leaders said they would soon head to the country amid growing concerns about regional stability.

West African presidents plan to fly to Mali as regional powers escalate efforts to block a coup-driven regime change, two sources said, after an opposition coalition there joined the junta in rejecting foreign interference.

Leaders of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) convened over the crisis on Thursday, after it suspended Mali, shut off borders and halted financial flows in response to Tuesday’s overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita.

The bloc plans to send a delegation of presidents including the leaders of Niger, Senegal and Ghana to Mali’s capital, Bamako, to seek a resolution to the crisis, a regional diplomat and a senior official told Reuters.

It was not immediately possible to confirm the information.

The coup, which has rocked a country already in the grip of a jihadist insurgency and civil unrest, has been met with almost universal condemnation abroad.

Within Mali, the M5-RFP coalition of opposition groups said it was working with the mutineers. It labelled ECOWAS’s initial response to the coup over-reaction stemming from some regional leaders’ fears that it could set off unrest in their countries.

“(The leaders) are on an all-out drive to set ECOWAS against Mali,” said M5-RFP spokesman Nouhoum Togo.

The capital Bamako was calm for the second straight day on Thursday, a Reuters reporter said, as people appeared to heed earlier calls from junta spokesman Colonel Ismael Wague to return to work and go about their daily lives.

Marc-Andre Boisvert, an independent researcher on the Malian security forces, said the senior mutineers were all respected army colonels.

“It was a coup led by combat-experienced, not personality-driven  officers,” he said “I expect they were selected to be the image of the coup as they are respected and close to the (ordinary) soldiers.”

ECOWAS is expected to release a statement outlining its next steps later on Thursday.

In July, an ECOWAS delegation failed to broker an agreement between Keita and the opposition, who were leading large-scale protests against the government.

Leaders attending the bloc’s virtual summit said the political upheaval in Mali could destabilise the entire region.

“The events in Mali (have).. grave consequences for the peace and security of West Africa,” Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari tweeted.

The coup has fuelled concerns it could disrupt a military campaign against jihadists linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State operating in northern and central Mali and West Africa’s wider Sahel region.

France will continue its Mali-based military operations against Islamist fighters, its armed forces minister said on Thursday.

Landlocked Mali has struggled to regain stability since a Tuareg uprising in 2012 which was hijacked by al Qaeda-linked militants, and a subsequent coup in the capital plunged the country into chaos.

(REUTERS)