Gbagbo vows to remain in power until the next elections

President Laurent Gbagbo of Cote d’Ivoire has said he and the existing parliament will not budge from power until elections can be held – even if they are delayed beyond the existing October 30 deadline. “I reassure Ivorians that...the President and the Parliament will remain in office until the next presidential and legislative elections,” said Gbagbo, on the eve of Monday's independence day celebrations. Gbagbo’s comments broadcast on state television and radio, follows a recent warning by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan that the October polls may be delayed as preparations, including disarmament of thousands of fighters, are behind schedule. Gbagbo came to power in contested polls in 2000. A special UN mandate in 2005 granted him another year in office until a crucial October ballot meant to seal the country’s hobbling peace process and reunite a country split in two since a September 2002 army mutiny. But diplomats say that Gbagbo is unlikely to get backing for a second UN-backed mandate extension if the polls are delayed. Instead, they say, his UN-appointed Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny could head a new interim government. According to a new report published Monday by U.S.-based analysis group Stratfor, President Gbagbo is undermining the peace process on two fronts by supporting militias who should be disarming and backing opponents of an on-going identification programme. A long delayed programme to disarm some 2,000 pro-government militia was suspended last week, after UN organisers said the fighters were turning up to receive their disarmament payments, but failing to hand over their weapons. And hard-line Gbagbo supporters, the Young Patriots, have forced a programme to identify and issue voters cards to some three million Ivorians to grind to a halt in much of the government-controlled south. Gbagbo has repeatedly claimed that his northern opponents could abuse the programme. The mutineers that failed to oust Gbagbo in 2002, now known as the New Forces, continue to hold the northern territories of this top cocoa-producing nation, and Gbagbo’s administration retains the more industrialised and wealthier south. Some 10,000 UN and French peacekeepers maintain a shaky peace in this once bastion of stability.