20101106
africanews

The top two finishers from Ivory Coast's Sunday's presidential election have begun preparations for a second round run-off slated for November 28.

Incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, 65, and former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara, 68, on Friday began remobilising their troops – campaign directors, communicators, militants, etc – in view of bracing themselves in time ahead of the end of November face-off.

Gbagbo held a meeting on Friday with his collaborators at his party’s LMP headquarters in Cocody, Abidjan to analyses the experience from the first round and plan for the run-off while Ouattara, who flew to Dakar on Thursday to meet with Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade, returned on Friday to meet with his team at his party’s RDR headquarters in Cocody.

Several young men and women were seen at different RDR party houses across Abidjan, taking instructions from campaign officers on the job cut out for them henceforth.

But the electoral commission, CEI, said Friday night on state TV RTI that the Nov. 28 date for the run-off remains tentative owing to complaints lodged by some losing candidates, including former President Henri Konan Bédié, which must be treated before another vote could hold.

Ouattara is counting on his coalition under RHDP – a bloc of four political parties united by their bond to late President Felix Houphouet Boigny – which includes Bédié’s PDCI that scored 25.24%.

Ouattara will have less trouble if Bédié’s supporters would cooperate, but observers say Gbagbo is capable of cutting deep into that fold as well with his nationalist rhetoric.

Another gain for Ouattara would be the continuous accusation of Bédié and his militants that Gbagbo rigged the poll to their detriment.