The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Wednesday to shift power from Ivory Coast's president to its prime minister to guide the volatile West African nation to long-delayed elections within a year.
The move, stripping President Laurent Gbagbo of almost all his authority, came in a resolution quickly rewritten after the council deadlocked over an earlier French draft that critics said violated the country's sovereignty and constitution.
The resolution extended Ivory Coast's transitional government for a second year, until October 31, 2007, so that elections can be held and a democratically chosen government installed.
The transitional government includes Gbagbo - who has often acted in ways that undermined a UN-backed peace process in the turbulent and divided nation - as well as Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny.
But the measure stipulates that Banny "shall have a mandate" to carry out all state functions required to implement the peace process and lead the country to elections, in line with an African Union decision. Elections were initially due by October 31, 2005. But when time ran out without a vote, the council authorised a transitional government to stay in power through October 2006.
A year later, elections have still not been held due to continual feuding between rival factions in the once prosperous cocoa-growing nation, split since a 2002-2003 civil war into a rebel-held north and government-held south. France had argued the measure needed to be adopted on Tuesday to avoid a legal vacuum.
But the United States, Russia, China and Tanzania threatened to abstain if the resolution were put to a vote without changes. Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa, which takes a two-year seat on the 15-nation UN council in January, had dismissed the earlier text as "a regime change by the Security Council."
But Kumalo embraced Wednesday's compromise. "It's better today," he told a reporter. "It takes into account what the African Union has said." Immediately following the council vote, however, Ivory Coast UN Ambassador Philippe Djangone-Bi injected a note of uncertainty, dismissing the idea Gbagbo would be "a sort of honorary president."
As Djangone-Bi saw it, Gbagbo would decide which powers to grant Banny, and even then would do so only "for a specific job and for a specific time." "That is what will be done. And we are sure that the prime minister and the president will cooperate for the good of the nation," he told reporters. French Ambassador Jean-Marc de la Sabliere insisted nonetheless that the text gave Banny the authority he needed.
"What is important is to have the Ivorians working together. If there are still difficulties, then we have given (Banny) the possibility to resolve the issue," he said. Wednesday's last-minute amendments trimmed the powers of both Banny and Gerard Stoudmann, the UN High Representative for Ivory Coast elections.
While the earlier draft had included the "appointment of civilian and military officials" among Banny's powers, the final version dropped those words. The final draft also added language requiring Stoudmann to consult with Banny in resolving any election disputes.
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