THE African Union has named five presidents to resolve the Ivory Coast leadership dispute, but the panel released by officials does not include Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe as reported by the state-owned Herald newspaper on Monday.
The presidents of South Africa, Tanzania, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Chad will form the high-level panel, Noureddine Mezni, spokesman for the AU Commission chairman, told reporters in Ethiopia.
The panel is to be headed by Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who chairs the AU Peace and Security Council.
"The chairman of this group will call a meeting on Monday afternoon to discuss a programme ... because they have to move, because they have only one month," Mezni said.
The AU accuses incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo of clinging onto power after being defeated in a December poll by challenger Alassane Ouattara. The AU has said the panel's proposed settlement will be binding on both sides.
On Monday, the state-run Herald and the privately-owned NewsDay newspapers both claimed Mugabe was on the panel.
The Herald reported that “Mugabe will join Presidents Jacob Zuma (South Africa), Hifikepunye Pohamba (Namibia and SADC chairman), Goodluck Jonathan (Nigeria and ECOWAS chairman), Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz (Mauritania and PSC chairman), Idriss Deby (Chad and chairman of the Economic Community of Central African States) and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi (chairman of the Inter- Governmental Authority for Development).”
NewsDay said “the drafting in of President Mugabe has been seen by his rivals as an endorsement of being ‘legitimately elected’ by African leaders.”
But in Ethiopia on Monday, Mezni said apart from Mauritania’s Aziz, the other members of the panel were Presidents Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso, Idriss Deby of Chad, Jacob Zuma of South Africa and Jakaya Kikwete of Tanzania.
He added that the panel would travel to Ivory Coast at a date which has yet to be fixed.
The five-member panel is to be accompanied by Ping and by James Victor Gbeho, the president of the commission of the Economic Community of West African States.
The AU on Friday said the panel was expected to come up with binding resolutions, within a month, to resolve the two-month-old power struggle in Ivory Coast between incumbent strongman Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, the internationally recognised winner of disputed November elections.