I.Coast Opposition Lists Demands To Be Met Before Dialogue

Abidjan, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 14th Nov, 2020 ) :Ivory Coast's two main opposition parties on Friday made a string of demands they want to see met before engaging in further dialogue on the country's election crisis which has claimed scores of lives.

The call came two days after President Alassane Ouattara and his main rival Henri Konan Bedie spoke for the first time since October 31's vote resulted in a bitter standoff.

Ouattara was declared the winner with more than 94 percent of the vote, but the opposition refused to acknowledge the result, launching a campaign of "civil disobedience" and vowing to set up a transitional government.

Numerous opposition leaders were then arrested, while the homes of others were blockaded by security forces.

"Before discussions start, it is essential to restore calm and confidence between all the actors" Bedie's PDCI party and the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) said in a joint statement.

Demands included the "end of all legal proceedings against the leaders and activists of the opposition and civil society", the statement said.

It also called for the blockade on opposition leaders' homes to be lifted, the release of all "political prisoners" and the "return of all exiles".

Among the political figures exiled from Ivory Coast are FPI founder and former president Laurent Gbagbo, his right-hand man Charles Ble Goude and ex-rebel chief Guillaume Soro.

Gbagbo is in Brussels and Ble Goude in The Hague after they were acquitted of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court over a conflict in which 3,000 people were killed after 2010's election.

Soro has meanwhile called for the army to disobey Ouattara, who in turn vowed the ex-rebel leader's "life imprisonment".

The opposition statement also requested that talks with Ouattara be held "under the aegis of a facilitator".

The meeting between Ouattara and Bedie on Wednesday had seemed to calm tensions, with the president saying "we have been able to break through the wall of ice and the wall of silence".

Deadly violence erupted in August after Ouattara announced his bid for a third spell in office, arguing that a 2016 revision of the constitution reset his term counter to zero -- a claim the opposition vigorously refutes.

The official death toll from the unrest rose to 85 on Wednesday, fuelling fears that francophone West Africa's biggest economy could plunge once more into post-election conflict.