By EMMAN   OVUAKPIORIE
ABUJA — THE lingering political crisis in Cote d’ Ivoire has been attributed to the  support the South African government is presently giving incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo by stationing a warship in the coast of the troubled country.

President of the Economic Communities of West African States, ECOWAS, Ambassador James Gbeho disclosed this yesterday when the European Union Electoral Observation Mission, EUEOM, submitted its report at the regional body’s secretariat.

According to him, the presence of the warship has further made the body to suffer a set back in its dialogue centred on peaceful negotiations because the last option open to “us is to use force to enforce our decisions on the issues at stake.

“Certain states within the African Union are taking sides on this matter and this development is fast eroding our efforts at finding a lasting solution to the problems in Ivory Coast as patience is all we need to get the country back on its feet.

“A situation like this demands that the regional body involved needed to be consulted first before any action is taken but what we are seeing now is that some states are breaking the rules because they have interests to protect.

“The African Union has one month to conduct its findings and come out with a position on the issue which definitely would be centred on a peaceful way of resolving the trouble by appealing to the sensibilities of Gbagbo to see reason and vacate office for the winner.”

Gbagbo is at fault—  EU Team

Meanwhile, the European Union, EU, Chief Observer, Prof. Christian Preda said yesterday that Gbagbo principally caused the present political crisis in Cote d’Ivoire.

Preda made this disclosure while presenting the final report on European Union Electoral Observation Mission on Cote D’Ivoire at the ECOWAS secretariat.

According to the Chief Observer the first election held in the troubled state was free and fair but the second one was marred by violence and tension as a curfew was imposed by the incumbent president of the country on the eve of the polls.

He said the team observed certain illegalities during the second election but generally this did not affect the results as Allasane Ouattara emerged the clear winner of the election.

Findings of the Team indicated “Ivorien citizens voted in great numbers, 85per cent turnout in a calm first round of the presidential elections, the political space and the electoral process dominated by three main candidates.”

“The elections were administered by the Independent Election Commission, CEI, which carried them out with some shortcomings as the international standards for democratic elections did not suffer major violations.”

It was also noted that no “major incidents, no indications of fraud, in the 935 polling stations observed by the 100 European observers across the country, finding shortcomings in a fifth of them as candidate Gbagbo and Ouattara obtained respectively 38.04percent et 32.07percent of the votes and thus qualified for the second round while candidate Bedie polled 25.24percent and eventually supported Ouattara in the second election.”

“The public media coverage during the pre_electoral campaign was clearly in favour of the incumbent as well as in the information programmes of public media during thw campaign.”

The report further said “aggressive remarks accusing observers of partiality continued in the media and direct death threats against observers occurred, 16 EU observers had to be removed from observing the aggregations and tabulations during the night of November 28 because of increasing violence, always in areas of incumbent.”

“After the elections two of the observers were roughed up by members of the Ivorien Army in Abidjan, next to Radio Television Ivoirienne.”

It was also observed that for the second time the CEI improved its performance, which was qualified as “very good, good and fair in 96pecent of the cases, Gbagbo, and 92percent, Ouattara in the 943 polling stations monitored by the EUEOM and with their overwhelming presence all over the country contributed to the integrity of the process.”

“The EUEOM did not observe massive fraud anywhere but observed intimidation and violence in areas of the incumbent though the team was not allowed by the CEI access to the results per polling station, thus remaining unable to verify their quality.”

“On December 2 CEI declared results, 55.16percent for candidate Ouattara and 44.84percent for candidate Gbagbo corresponding with sample results collected by EUEOM observers. The night after,  Conseil Constitutional declared Gbagbo  president with 51percent of the votes against 49percent for Ouattara.”

The Conseil is composed of one president and six counsellors all appointed by the President of the Republic and no appeal lies against its decision.

In his address, President of ECOWAS James Victor Gbeho said the crisis in Cote d’Ivoire “is quite unfortunate and I can assure you that ECOWAS  in active collaboration with the international community is currently involved in efforts towards resolving the problem.”