Cote d'Ivoire presidential aide threatens to expel UN envoy
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An aide to Cote d'Ivoire's incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo has threatened to expel the special representative of the United Nations (UN) secretary general who is also the head of the UN Operations in Cote d'Ivoire (ONUCI) Choi Young-jin.
Choi is being accused of having certified the provisional results of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) and the victory of Alassane Ouattara which was invalidated by the constitutional council.
"This should be the last time that Choi is commenting on this issue. We are warning him that the next time he speaks about the matter, we shall immediately expel him," Alcide Djedje who is an adviser to Gbagbo and Cote d'Ivoire's ambassador to the UN said on Friday through the national television.
Whereas the constitutional council declared Gbagbo as the winner, the ONUCI head insisted that the election was "generally held in a democratic manner" and that the announcement of results by the constitutional council was a fraud.
"Even if all issues raised by the president's camp at the constitutional council were taken into account, the results that were declared by CEI which declared Alassane Ouattara as the winner could not change," he said.
"The United Nations is here to help us end the crisis and not to get immersed in the internal affairs of Cote d'Ivoire," Djedje said.
He insisted that "Cote d'Ivoire was a sovereign state and no other organ even the United Nations Security Council could not give a binding decision that contradicts the decision taken by the national institutions."
"We shall not be intimidated by any one," he said while noting that the UN was "an amorphous institution where the interests of bigger states are defended under the guise of the UN."
The ONUCI chief got the mandate of the UN Security Council to "certify all the stages of the electoral process which are necessary for the holding of open, free and fair elections under the internationally accepted standards."
