In Ivory Coast, Alassane Ouattara and Henri Konan Bédié have "broken the wall of ice"
Alassane Ouattara and Henri Konan Bédié after their meeting, November 11, 2020. REUTERS / Luc Gnago
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3 min
Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara met this Wednesday, November 11, the president of the opposition coalition, Henri Konan Bédié.
This meeting took place two days after Alassane Ouattara's televised speech in which he indicated his intention to meet the president of the PDCI.
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With our correspondent in Abidjan,
François Hume-Ferkatadji
Alassane Ouattara and Henri Konan Bédié met for about 45 min.
"
We agreed that peace is the most expensive thing for both of us, and for all Ivorians,
" said the Ivorian president after this meeting, without giving, for the moment, more details on the content of discussions.
The Head of State indicated that it was first of all to "
restore confidence
" and that the "
dialogue has started well
".
The president of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) and representative of the opposition was not more vocal.
Today's meeting "
made it possible to break the wall of ice
", he was content to indicate, and that new talks were scheduled in the coming days.
It had been more than two years since the two men had met.
The place of this meeting - the Hôtel du Golf - is highly symbolic.
It is here that Alassane Ouattara and his elder Henri Konan Bédié remained reclusive for four months during the post-electoral crisis, from December 2010 to April 2011. At the time, they were allies against the outgoing president Laurent Gbagbo, and the security situation was chaotic.
A list of prerequisites for any discussion
The scenario is different this time.
The two men find themselves in this hotel while they are politically opposed, they engage in a real fight, which has hardened in recent days, with the arrest of several personalities of the PDCI and the blockade of the residence of Henri Konan Bédié.
This blockade was lifted early Wednesday afternoon.
This is also part of a list of preconditions of the PDCI before the opening of any political discussions.
In this list, made public this Wednesday, it is therefore called for the lifting of the blockade of the residences of the leaders of the opposition - they are six to have been thus prevented in recent days;
the release of all the leaders and activists of the opposition, so Maurice Guikahué, number 2 of the PDCI, and Pascal Affi N'Guessan, the president of the FPI-legal;
the lifting of legal proceedings.
About twenty political leaders are being prosecuted for “rebellion against the authority of the State”, but also for “murders” or terrorism.
The PDCI also calls for an “
inclusive and broad dialogue to include all opposition political platforms and parties
”.
It is therefore a question of forgetting neither the Ivorian Popular Front in these discussions, nor Guillaume Soro's Generations and People of Solidarity (GPS) movement.
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Ivory Coast
Alassane Ouattara
Henri Konan Bédié