By Simon Orwell
Situation is expected to get worse in Ivory Coast as thousands of people loyal to Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo were expected to stage a 24-hour rally today. Many youths gathered by outside the presidential palace to express their support for the incumbent leader.
Charles Ble Goude, Gbagbo's fiery youth minister and leader of the militant "Young Patriots", has asked the people of the country to attend the overnight rally to "show that Laurent Gbagbo has majority support."
The meeting will run from Saturday afternoon to Sunday morning. Goude said that the meeting It would be a "popular uprising" to include camping and celebrations to glorify God. It is to be noted that Gbagbo is facing intense pressure from the international community to step down and accept Alassane Ouattara as the winner of the November election. The rally is taking place in downtown Plateau, the administrative district of the economic capital Abidjan. "The international community certainly has its president," Ble Goude said Friday on state television. "But the national community has its president Laurent Gbagbo."
US President Barack Obama yesterday said that if Gbagbo and his supporters continued to cling to power, it would "lead to more violence, more innocent civilians being wounded and killed and more diplomatic and economic isolation." The November 28 election "was free and fair," the US president said in a video message to the leaders and people of Ivory Coast. "And President Alassane Ouattara is the democratically elected leader of the nation."
Obama made the statement after the UN Security Council met yesterday to hold discussions over s a draft resolution introduced by France and Nigeria to impose a heavy weapons ban in the troubled West African nation.
