Ivory Coast's deposed leader held a mass rally, calling on his supporters to put an end to "impostors and dictators."
Former president Henri Konan Bedie, who was toppled in a military coup in 1999, is vying for the presidency again in Ivory Coast's upcoming elections. The elections -- whose dates have not yet been set -- are being held following a peace accord signed between President Laurent Gbagbo and rebel leader Guillaume Soro, a deal that saw the reunification of the country's two warring halves.
In the opposition's first major rally, Bedie on Saturday attacked the "gangrene of corruption and complacency" of the Gbagbo regime. He said that, if elected, he would take the country through "an electric shock treatment" to address the nation's economic woes, as well as the problems of youth unemployment and street violence.
Thousands of supporters gathered in the small town of Dabou, applauding and cheering as the ex-president heaped criticizm on Gbagbo's regime.
The government has announced that elections will be no earlier than October next year. Gbagbo had called for elections to be held in December, but the nation's electoral commission recently said that it would be unrealistic to expect elections to take place before October next year, since millions of Ivoirians, many of whom have no form of ID, will need to be registered to vote.
Ivory Coast, the world's leading cocoa producer, was split in two after a 2002 war began. The peace deal signed in March, called for rebel chief Soro to become prime minister as part of the power-sharing deal and for elections to be held within 10 months. The delay to next year is at least the third time elections have been postponed.
The poll was first delayed for a year in 2005, and then again last year because Gbagbo loyalists and rebels who controlled the north could not agree on key issues, including disarmament and a national program meant to help register legitimate voters lacking proper identity documents.
"The current situation in Ivory Coast, where these people are prolonging their time as head of state without having been elected, is fundamentally undemocratic ... It's embarrassing for the Ivoirian nation," Bedie said.
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