IVORY COAST: UN mission chief in Abidjan, Pierre Schori, says Ivorian poll not possible by October 31 deadline.

War-divided Ivory Coast cannot organise elections by the October 31 deadline and its politicians lack the will to end the impasse blocking a peace process, the head of the UN peacekeeping mission, Pierre Schori said on Wednesday (August 23). Presidential elections due in October 2005 were delayed by up to one year under a UN peace plan to reunify the world's top cocoa grower, which has been divided in two since a 2002-03 civil war when rebels seized the north. Around 7,000 UN and 4,000 French peacekeepers are policing a fragile ceasefire line between the two sides and supervising a peace process aimed at holding democratic elections. "Technically it wouldn't be possible to make it now because you haven't finished proper identification and voter registration. So only that side, it is not possible feasible, even if the political will was there to do it today," UN mission chief Pierre Schori told Reuters in an interview in the main city Abidjan. Regional leaders would meet on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September to draw up recommendations to the African Union on how to proceed, he said. "One thing is certain, there can be no business as usual. We cannot just move on find a new date and move on without adding something because this will only be a recipe for stalemate, uncertainty and lack of progress," Schori said. Programmes to disarm thousands of fighters on both sides and issue identity papers to those entitled have been repeatedly delayed due to widespread disputes between President Laurent Gbagbo, political opposition parties and the northern rebels. Most fighting ended in 2003 after a series of peace deals but as their implementation has dragged, Ivory Coast has seen occasional outbursts of violence, some of them involving Gbagbo supporters known as "Young Patriots".

ITN Source | August 24, 2006

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