Thousands of protesters marched through the central Ivory Coast city of Bouake on Saturday, some of them setting fire to cars, smashing up shops and looting a local government office. Demonstrations have erupted almost daily across the world's top cocoa producer since President Laurent Gbagbo dissolved the government and the electoral commission a week ago, after a row over voter registration.
Marchers in Bouake shouted: "We don't want Gbagbo", as a group of them broke into the regional governor's office and stole equipment, a Reuters reporter saw. Rioters set fire to at least two cars. "Gbagbo must quit now! He cannot stay in power," said Abdul Sylla, 25, a clothing designer. In the south-western town of Gagnoa, Ivorian security forces dispersed protesters with tear gas a day after they opened fire on demonstrators there and killed five.
Friday's clashes were the first to result in bloodshed in a week of demonstrations, heightening tension as public anger grows at years of delays to the election timetable. The military confirmed on national television that five people had been killed and nine wounded in Friday's protest.
"The police are here and they have launched tear gas to disperse us but we stayed," protester Issa Diomande told Reuters by telephone on Saturday. "They have not fired their guns yet. We are going to march all day." Witness Jean Baptiste Kroupke told Reuters by phone that Saturday's march was not yet as violent as Friday's had been.
Gbagbo said in a statement in the state-owned Fraternite Matin newspaper that he had temporarily reinstated Defence Minister Michel N'Guessan Amani, Interior Minister Désiré Tagro and Finance Minister Charles Diby to handle government business while the prime minister forms a new government. Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, a former rebel during the 2002-3 civil war that carved the country in two, was due to form a government on Saturday, but an aide said it would not be announced until Monday.
"We're saying the new government will be known on Monday," said Alain Lobognon, special advisor to Soro on communication. Reforming the electoral commission could take longer and Ivory Coast is certain to miss a scheduled March deadline to hold presidential polls already four and a half years overdue.
Gbagbo dissolved the commission after accusing its chief Robert Mambe of illegally adding names to the electoral register to boost the opposition vote. Many Ivorians have become deeply cynical about their leaders after years of political limbo, during which time neither Gbagbo nor the rebels have seemed in any great rush to resolve the crisis in West Africa's former economic hub.
International pressure is mounting on Gbagbo to move swiftly to get the peace process back on track. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State William Fitzgerald on Friday said: "There was a clear path and yet President Gbagbo felt obliged, for whatever reason, to take another path."