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UN renews arms, diamond embargo on Ivory Coast

Mozambique's Guebuza seen as landslide polls winner
Mozambique's President Armando Guebuza was declared the "landslide" winner of last week's polls by two election monitoring groups on Monday. Frelimo, Mozambique's ruling party since independence in 1975, had 71 percent of the vote with 89 percent of polling stations reporting, said the Center for Public Integrity and the Association of European Parliamentarians for Africa.

Guebuza was winning the presidential race comfortably with 76 percent of the presidential vote, based on an analysis of provisional returns showing a huge victory for the leader who is seeking a second and final term. "Guebuza landslide," the two organisations declared in their regular election newsletter. The race for second place -- closely watched in the wake of a recent opposition split -- was being won by long-time opposition leader Afonso Dhlakama, leader of the former rebel movement Renamo, who had claimed 15 percent of the vote.

Daviz Simango, founder of the breakaway Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), was in third place with 9 percent. In the parliamentary race, Frelimo was on track to jump from 160 seats to at least 193 seats in Mozambique's 250-seat parliament with Renamo beating the MDM 17 percent to four percent. Final results are expected by November 12, after election officials have tabulated province-level results and reviewed rejected ballots. Last Wednesday's vote was Mozambique's fourth national poll since a 16-year civil war between Renamo and the Frelimo government ended in the establishment of multi-party democracy in 1994.

by Staff Writers
 United Nations (AFP) Oct 29, 2009
 The UN Security Council Thursday renewed for a year an arms and diamond embargo on Ivory Coast, hoping it can be lifted after free and fair elections are held in the divided nation.

The resolution, identical to last year's, passed by unanimous vote in the 15-member council. First imposed in 2005, the embargo on weapons and on trade in rough diamonds from the west African nation now extends to October 31, 2010.

It also extends travel restrictions targeting Ivorian political figures and a freeze on their foreign assets.

Drawn up by France, the resolution calls for an embargo review "in light of the progress achieved in the electoral process and in the implementation of the key steps of the peace process."

Specifically, the review is to kick in "no later than three months after the holding of open, free, fair and transparent presidential elections in accordance with international standards."

The council warned that more sanctions would be considered if the electoral process in Ivory Coast is threatened.

"In particular any attack or obstruction of the action of the Independent Electoral Commission in charge of the organization of the elections... shall constitute a threat to the peace and national reconciliation process," the resolution said.

Many times delayed since 2005, the country's presidential elections are seen as essential to end the political-military crisis that began after a failed September 2002 coup against President Laurent Gbagbo.

On Wednesday, a close ally to Gbagbo said it was not possible to organize presidential elections by the scheduled date of November 29, indicating yet another delay.

In disapproving the embargo extension, Ivory Coast's Ambassador to the United Nations Alicide Djedje said that circumstances in his country had changed.

"The former belligerents... have reconciled... and there's no reason why individual sanctions should be maintained."

Gbagbo's mandate ran out in 2005 while his country was divided between the government-held south and the north, held by rebel New Forces, who had tried to oust him in 2002.

Gbagbo came to power in 2000 and has made peace with the New Forces, headed by Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, but he still only presides over half of the cocoa-rich nation. The rest remains in the hands of the former rebels.

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AFRICA NEWS
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