Abidjan — The new de facto president of Cote d'Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo has announced his immediate plans after a spontaneous popular uprising, which appears to have toppled the military government of General Robert Guei.
Many Ivorians believe Gbagbo was the rightful winner of Sunday's presidential poll and accuse Guei of stealing the vote.
It was people power, Belgrade-style, that propelled the Ivorian Popular Front leader within sight of the presidency. But Gbagbo, a veteran socialist, says he will not take up the post of head of state until the National Electoral Commission has validated his victory and announced the true results of the election.
The commission was dismissed on Tuesday after General Guei declared himself winner of the presidential election. That move triggered mass protests in which thousands of people descended on to the streets of the commercial capital Abidjan.
They poured onto the streets again on Wednesday, defying jittery soldiers who fired rapid volleys and threw teargas to try to disperse the demonstrators.
The protestors, however, were not taking no for an answer. They showed extraordinary courage as they marched towards the soldiers and kept advancing, all the way to the presidential palace. The soldiers fired over their heads and into the air, some also fired straight at the crowds. An unconfirmed number of demonstrators were killed and others injured, but they continued their protest.
The mood changed on the streets when news filtered through that General Guei, who himself swept to power in a military coup last December, had fled the country. There were later conflicting reports that he was still in Cote d'Ivoire.
When the head of Guei's presidential body guard called his troops off and ordered them back to the barracks, some of the soldiers- and most of the para-military police (gendarmerie) came to side with the demonstrators and stopped shooting. By late afternoon the crackle of sporadic gunfire could still be heard coming from the direction of the presidency in the heart of the business district of Abidjan.
But that did not stop the man Ivorians are now calling 'president in waiting' from holding preliminary meetings with a stream of senior army and police officers, as well as leading members of the outgoing military government.
Laurent Gbagbo, and his wife Simone Ehivet Gbago, received the visitors at his unfinished three storey home in the leafy residential Riviera neighborhood where family, fans and supporters had gathered to congratulate and cook for their leader. Gbago again thanked the people of Ivory Coast for their support and for taking to the streets in their thousands in an overwhelming response, he said, to his call to resist the army, guns and teargas and march for democracy, freedom and an honest election.
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Earlier he spoke on national radio and television, describing those who had died for the cause over the past two days heroes and martyrs of Ivory Coast.
Gbagbo said he had asked the outgoing prime minister, Seydou Diarra, to remain in that post to avoid a political vacuum until he could formally assume the functions of president.
"I am a democrat and a republican." Gbagbo told reporters, "so we must follow the rule of law and respect the constitution."
Another lingering problem for Laurent Gbagbo is a call by supporters of his rival Alassane Ouattara, who was disqualified from standing for president, for the election to be annulled. They too were on the streets of Abidjan demanding their rights.
