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Gbagbo Asks UN Help to Consolidate Power, Basket Funds from UNDP

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press in Africa: News Analysis

ABIDJAN, June 9 -- This last leg of the UN Security Council trip in Cote d'Ivoire is supposed to be a good news, feel good stop.  At least for now, the elections are on track for November 30, and President Gbagbo is talking nice about Ban Ki-moon's envoy, K.Y. Choi. In the Sofitel lobby, Inner City Press asked the Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission Beugre Mambe about the role of the UN, particularly of the UN Development Program. Mambe said that UNDP -- he used the French acronym, the PNUD -- is raising "basket funds" for the elections from Cote d'Ivoire's friends. But is fundraising, and fee-taking, all that UNDP does? No, Mambe said. UNDP also works on the "best systems" for elections.

  But after UNDP had said it was playing a similar role in Kenya, and violence broke out, UNDP quickly backed away from any claims about "best practices," emphasizing that it neither guarantees nor even monitors elections. So if Ivorians are counting on UNDP on in either respect, they may be disappointed.

  Earlier on Monday, Inner City Press asked the president of the Rassemblement des republicains, Alassane Ouattara, if in his meeting with those Security Council members remaining the issue of drawdown of peacekeepers, from the UN or the French Force Licorne, had been discussed. Ouattara said his position is that the UN peacekeepers should be maintained or reinforced. He did not separately mention the French Licorne soldiers, who have recently been profiled as lazing around, a la dolce vida.  France's Ambassador Jean-Maurice Ripert, in the Council's last press conference of the trip, stated that the "Licorne is not a French force," which left many in the audience shaking their heads. The underlying question had not even mentioned Licorne or France, but rather the role of the UN peacekeeping force. While Burkina-Faso's Ambassador Michel Kafando said, and South Africa's Dumisani Kumalo seconded, that there is not for now a fear of violence in connection with the elections, sources in the Gbagbo - Council  meeting indicate that Gbagbo quipped that in developing countries, election time is "not a dinner party" (n'est pas un diner de gala).

  While some have been saying he will never hold the election, Gbagbo on Monday said he is in a hurry to hold elections, since divided government has led to "paralyis."

  France's role in Cote d'Ivoire is a subtext to this UN Council visit, which will be followed on June 14 by an appearance by French foreign affairs minister Bernard Kouchner. Cote d'Ivoire is increasingly turning to other partners, now specifically requiring that French companies make sufficient local hires. Rwanda, which the Council passed through late on Sunday night, is further down this road, having rooted out the French language based on the country's role in the 1994 genocide. Chad and Congo were France's moments in the sun during this trip. In the first, President Deby did not meet with the Council. In Congo, while President Kabila praised the Council's and International Criminal Court's work, legislators asked tougher questions, about the arrest of Kabila's main opponent Jean-Pierre Bemba and its timing. The Council's dodge of this question in Congo was telling, when contrasted with its tough ICC talk in Khartoum.

   Cote d'Ivoire is a love-fest not for France but Ban's envoy Choi Young-Jin. During Ban's most recent visit to Abidjan, Gbagbo effusively praised Choi, comparing him to Kofi Annan's envoy who were essentially thrown out of the country after insisting on earlier elections and speaking on such matters of the Trafigura toxic waste scandal. Whether the praise of Choi derives from his flexibility on such matters is a question -- and one that Inner City Press asked, in another form, at the post-Gbagbo press conference held at UNOCI headquarters in an old hotel in a hill.

  Inner City Press asked if it is true that Gbagbo, in his closed door meeting with the Council, specifically asked that Choi be given the power to supervise the Institut national de statistiques, INS, and the electoral contractor SAGEM. Ambassador Michel Kafando referred the question to Mr. Choi, who in an answer that must have praised the absent but monitoring Gbagbo said that all the UN does is "accompany" the Ivorians, that they have national ownership, "we cannot replace them." But will Choi check in on SAGEM and INS? The question was not answered. Nor was a question about reported sexual abuse in UNOCI, click here for that.

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These reports are usually also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click here for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali National Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an undefined trust fund.  Video Analysis here

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