South Africa's Mbeki to mediate over Ivory Coast poll result

A day after both candidates claimed Presidency in Ivory Coast, African Union said it would dispatch former South African premier Thabo Mbeki for mediations.

Local media has reported that at least a dozen people were killed in post-election violence in the former capital of Abijdan. There are also reports of continuous firing in parts of the violence-hit country. The army imposed a two-day curfew over the weekend and is joined by 9,800 UN peacekeepers at patrol.

Subduing Western criticism over the polls, the union of 53-member African states announced that Thabo Mbeki announced that there will be an emergency mission to find a common ground between Cote d'Ivoire's incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo and former prime minister Alassane Ouattara. Both leaders have sworn themselves in after claiming victory in the recent presidential run-off.

Warning of incalculable consequences, the AU maintained that it rejected all attempts to create a fait accompli to undermine the electoral process and the will of the people. It urged both parties to exercise restraint and to refrain from taking actions which will exacerbate an already fragile situation.

The United Nations, US, France and other European countries backed Ouattara as President and asked Gbago to accept defeat.

It was on Thursday that the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) declared Ouattara to have won the run-off by 54.1 per cent of votes to 45.9 per cent. But the country's Constitutional Council named Gbagbo as winner overturning the earlier results on Friday. The president of the council, Paul Yao N'Dre, stated that after excluding votes in seven regions that were marred by irregularities, Gbagbo won the polls by 51 per cent to Ouattara's 48 per cent. The country's army is backing Gbagbo as the president and borders of the country have been sealed off.

South African President Zacob Zuma is also involved in mediations which are aimed at resolving the disputes of Zimbabwe's power-sharing government which is almost on the verge of collapse. The Zimbabwe standoff worsened as Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai filed a lawsuit against ruling president Robert Mugabe accusing him of violating the global political agreement (GPA) signed between them.