Elections designed to restore peace set for 30 October

Cote d'Ivoire's government has announced that a first round of long-awaited presidential elections, designed to bring peace back to the divided West African nation, will be held on 30 October. "The next presidential elections in Cote d'Ivoire will take place, for the first round, on Sunday 30 October 2005," government spokesman Hubert Oulai said on state television late Thursday. Hopes that peace might finally return to the world's top cocoa producer, which has been split in two for almost three years, have been growing since a summit in the South African capital, Pretoria earlier this month. The election date announcement came hot on the heels of a decision by Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo to bow to international pressure and allow his main rival Alassane Ouattara to run against him in October's polls. The exclusion of Ouattara -- a former prime minister who now heads the opposition Rally of the Republicans party -- from the presidential elections in 2000 is considered to be one of the root causes behind a failed rebel attempt to topple Gbagbo in September 2002 that ushered in the civil war. The constitution stipulated that all presidential candidates must have two Ivorian parents, and Ouattara's opponents say his father was born in neighbouring Burkina Faso. Gbagbo for months insisted that a referendum was needed to change the rules governing who could stand for election but he made an about-turn on Tuesday following a request from South African President and international mediator Thabo Mbeki. Ouattara cautiously praised Gbagbo's decision to let him stand in October's polls as "an incontestable first step toward democracy in Cote d'Ivoire", but warned that this did not mean that all problems were solved. In New York, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan applauded the breakthrough, "The Secretary-General welcomes this development while stressing that it is vital that the parties take all necessary steps to ensure that the elections are free, fair and transparent and conform to international standards," his office said in a statement. After a slow start, Mbeki -- who was called in by the African Union after Cote d'Ivoire's shaky ceasefire collapsed in November -- has seen his peace drive gain momentum in the last month. The next crucial step is getting the rebels and government militias to start handing over their weapons as agreed on 14 May. Military chiefs from the rebel and government camps are due to meet in the official capital, Yamoussoukro, between 2 and 6 May to discuss the proposed timetable for disarmament. While they haggle over the details, the UN Security Council will have to consider the mandate of some 10,000 UN and French peacekeepers, patrolling the buffer zone between the rebel-run north and the government-held south. Their current mandate expires on 4 May. And with the election date now set, arrangements for allowing Cote d'Ivoire's 17 million people to go to the polls must begin in earnest. Diplomats say that with only six months to go, and the nation still divided, time to organise free and fair elections is tight. Gbagbo said on Tuesday that he had ordered the National Statistics Institute (INS) to start compiling electoral lists and sorting out voter cards in preparation for the polls, as has been the procedure for over 25 years. However, critics say voter registration should be carried out by the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI). The INS, they say, is headed by a close Gbagbo ally and impartiality cannot be guaranteed. Opposition leader Ouattara told Radio France Internationale this week that it would be wrong to charge the INS with the job and said it should be done by the CEI in cooperation with the UN mission in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI) But an INS official brushed off the criticism, "It is officially our job to compile voter cards and set up electoral lists and we're a recognized institute that has done this many times in the past," the official who did not wish to be identified told IRIN. "What's the problem?"