Transcript of President Jacob Zuma's replies to oral questions in the national assembly, Parliament, March 17 2011:

Question 5: Mr V B Ndlovu (IFP) to ask the President of Republic:

(a) What is the Government's position with regard to the Ivory Coast's election stalemate, (b) what is the rationale for this position and (c) how does it relate to the positions of the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States? NO774E

The PRESIDENT: Speaker, the African Union, Peace and Security Council issued a communiqué on the findings of the high level panel on Côte d'Ivoire on 10 March after its 265 meeting in Addis Ababa. The Council reaffirmed all its previous decisions on the post-electoral crisis facing Côte d'Ivoire since the second round of the presidential elections on 28 November 2010.

It recognized Mr Alassane Quattara as the winner of the presidential elections in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire. South Africa fully supports the position taken by the African Union on 10 March namely that Mr Quattara is recognized as the winner which is a reaffirmation of the position of Ecowas. We also support the AUs quest to find a peaceful political solution to the current crisis in Côte d'Ivoire. We are all of one mind on the way forward towards a sustainable political solution in that country. I thank you.

IsiZulu:

Mnu V B NDLOVU: Ngiyabonga Somlomo, Mongameli,izinkukhu zingakehli emthini, uhulumeni waseNingizimu Afrika weseka uMongameli Gbagbo okunguyena ophumayo esikhundleni ngokwamavoti. Izinkukhu zingakehli emthini. [Uhleko.]Kuthe emva kwalokho washintsha uhulumeni waseNingizimu Afrika, wavumelana nabanye emva kokuba sekuxoxiswene. Kwakuyini eyenza ukuthi uhulumeni waseNingizimu Afrika aqhamuke kuqala aseke umuntu ohluliwe okhethweni izinkukhu zingakehli emthini, bese ejika kamuva, Mongameli. [Uhleko.]

The PRESIDENT: Thank you hon Speaker... 

IsiZulu:

Ilungu elihloniphekile, uBaba uGatsheni, ngiyacabanga ukuthi noma izinkukhu sezehlile emthini, uma engabheka lapho kuqoshwe khona izinkulumo afunisise, acwaningisise ngeke aze athole ukuthi lo hulumeni weseka uGbagbo, akakaze nje nangelilodwa ilanga, noma izinkukhu zingakehli emthini noma sezehlile. [Uhleko.] Into uhulumeni ayisho ngenkathi efonelwa ngabaholi abehlukahlukene abaphesheya nabase-Afrika besinxenxa bethi asisukume seseke uQuattara, sathi kwenzeke isimanga lapha kuthe uma kufinyelelwa emaphethelweni okhetho kwaba khona izakhiwo ezimbili zase-Côte d'Ivoire ezisemthethweni, lesi esifana nesethu okuthiwa i-IEC, Independent Electoral Commission yathi kuphumelele uQuattara yathi eyesibili i-Constitutional Council kuphumelele uGbagbo ezweni lilinye kwenzeka into engakaze yenzeke kuthiwe kunoMongameli ababili, baphumelele ababili, kusho izakhiwo ezisemmthetwheni wakuleliya lizwe.

Sithi-ke thina uma siphendula, asikwazi ukuthi seseke oyedwa walaba ababili. Sizofisa kuqala ukwazi amaqiniso, ukuthi kwenzekeni? Yini le ebangele ukuthi lezi zakhiwo ezibaluleke kangaka ziphume nemibono emibili eyahlukahlukene na? Salile, sakhuluma futhi kwezwakala, uma ungayocwaninga ubhekisise kahle uyothola ukuthi eqinisweni sala ukusekela lo okuthiwa akaselwe yiwo wonke umuntu, sangamsekela lo ongasekelwa. Iqiniso limi lapho, sathi-ke ngoba sinalokho nje kokuthi kunento engenzekanaga la, akukaze kwenzeke lokho, nawe awukaze ukuzwe; ezweni elilodwa kuthiwe kuphumelele abantu ababili? Kuphumelela umuntu oyedwa okhethweni [Ubuwelewele.]

Sase sithi uma sifika e-AU senza isiphakamiso sathi ngoba nakhu kunombango, abanye bathi kuphumelele lo abantu bathi kuphumelele lowaya - uma lokhu kushiwo ngabantukazana nje ungathi bayazihhumela, kodwa uma sekusho izakhiwo ezisemthethweni - inkinga phela leyo, akutholakale amaqiniso. Yingakho-ke kwathi uma sesiphakamise lokho, kwakhiwa le sakhiwo esabizwa ngokuthi phecelezi- i-High Level Panel ye-Au, ukuthi ake iyophenya - neNingizmu Afrika yaba yingxenye yalokho. Nangempela-ke sihambile sayophenya, sawathola amaqiniso. Yila maqiniso-ke asebangele ukuthi ngoba sesiyazi ukuthi kewenzekeni, sathi ngempela ngempela uQuattara uphumelele, saba yingxenye yasinqumo se-AU. Akukho nje okunye okuphume eceleni, Gatsheni, lunga elihloniphekile. Konke kuhambe ngendlela.[Ihlombe.]

The SPEAKER: I have the following members on my...[Interjection]

Mr M G P LEKOTA: Speaker is it parliamentary for members of the ruling party to disrupt the input of the President when he is answering... [Interjections.]

The SPEAKER: Hon member please take your seat [Interjections.] [Laughter.] I have the following members who would like to take the floor; hon Meshoe, hon K S Mubu and hon Magama, in that order.

Rev K R J MESHOE: Speaker, having been to that country I still maintain that the endorsement of Alassan Quattara as President of Ivory Coast by the UN, EU, AU and Ecowas was both premature and unconstitutional. What happened in that country before, during and after the presidential elections is a travesty of justice. The call by the African Union to the Constitutional Council to swear him in as the new President of the country is nothing but a subtle attempt to legitimise the unconstitutional decision they have made.

My question to the hon President is whether he read former President Mbeki's report which highlighted constitutional irregularities and if so, why did the President choose to support this travesty of justice rather than stand for truth, justice and principle? I believe that what has happened is a perversion of justice at the expense of the suffering people of the Ivory Coast and that the sovereignty of that country has been undermined by foreign powers that want to continue controlling the economy of that nation. Surely a full investigation into the irregularities should have been conducted first by the international community, I thank you.

The PRESIDENT: Thank you hon Speaker, I am also aware that the hon member took a trip to the Ivory Coast, so he must be speaking from an informed position. Let me explain what happened and what we discovered as the High Level Panel began to do its work. I am going to help the hon member by explaining properly because the High Level panel had a team of experts that first went in and looked at the facts, the claims, counterclaims and allegations. The High Level Panel also talked to everyone there, and asked them questions. What has emerged, clearly, is that the IEC ....

We should understand that their IEC is not like ours. Ours has the final say on elections; it pronounces finally who has won and who has lost. It has said many times that the ANC has won and nobody can challenge that. [Laughter.] 

What happened was that there were four important bodies at the level of looking after the processes as well as the conclusion. These bodies are the IEC, which is basically administrative; the UN, which all parties agreed would be brought in to oversee and certify; the facilitator, who was the President of Burkina Faso; and the Constitutional Council.

All these had different functions, the facilitator was to facilitate, and the electoral commission was to pronounce the provisional results - not final results - provisional results. The UN representative had to certify the results, the Constitutional Council had to receive the results, complains and allegations, investigate and after investigating then determine and pronounce the final results, that was the procedure.

I am not going to go to a lot of detail. We sat in front of these bodies, independently for a long time until the evening. Just to explain what happened at the end, the IEC did not agree to finalise their own conclusions, they were supposed to do these within three days. The three days elapsed, they were arguing. The reason they were arguing was because they are not like our IEC, they are political, and they are a representative of political parties. They could not agree.

On the fourth day, the chairperson decided to leave the IEC and went on to announce the provisional results. He went to the hotel where Quattara operates from; next to him were the French and the US ambassadors. These are accusations that people levelled against those results. By the time this had happened all four institutions had received the same results at the same time, so they all had the minutes from different regions or areas which were saying exactly the same thing. What were they saying? They were saying that Quattara has won, in other words he was leading. This is what the Chairperson of the IEC announced, provisionally. As soon as he announced this, the UN representative certified that, yes these results are correct as announced by the IEC.

The international community then said Quattara had won; these were not the final results. That is the debate we have been engaging; why did you say the person has won when it was not announced by the final body that has the right to do so? This is the problem and that will even help those who asked the question earlier. We had a problem because given all of this, why should we support this side or that side, because clearly there were things that were wrong.

Whether there was a debate within the IEC or not, the fact of the matter, these remain provisional results, not the final results, the final results therefore, are those that were announced by the CC; it is a legal it did its job.

The entire committee was brought before the High Level Panel to be asked about what had happened, all of them, not a single one was not questioned. We established this fact, that in reality these that were supported by the world, were really provisional results, the final results were Gbagbo's. We then said because all the minutes were the same, what had happened here?

The argument within the IEC was that they were not agreeing on the four regions, the regions that Gbagbo had complained about. Indeed, when the CC looked at the results they were the same like all the others but there were complains so they did their job; they investigated the four regions and found that there was something wrong. They nullified the results and also investigated three more regions and finally emerged with 12% that these were fraudulent and therefore changed the results. Gbagbo's figures were more and Quattara's were less and so they announced Gbagbo as the winner.

The questions that the panel asked the CC - because the panel had all the information - were that Gbagbo had complained about four but seven regions were investigated, who instructed them to investigate the other three? Their answer was that they have a right by law, it was self-referral. The panel proceeded to ask if the CC realised that they had investigated the regions that nobody had complained about? Consequently that altered the results. Why did they do this? They claimed they had the right to do so. The panel explained that the three regions that the CC had investigated were only in the north, the strong hold of Quattara. There were other regions, why didn't they look at those regions in the south? Their answer was that they just wanted to look at the north. But did they realise that they changed the results and used the fact that they are a legal entity and therefore abused their authority? If they had not done so, and only looked and calculated the four, and disqualified those vote of Quattara, he would still have the majority vote, they had realised that and wanted to add three regions, so that they would get 12%.

The High Level Committee said, they took the votes from Quattara, using their legal status and as a result Quattara won. That is how it was concluded and that is why the results said Quattara won. That is what happened my hon member. And that is why we agreed with the decision. We were there, we questioned and were satisfied. They did not act in an honourably at first compared to the manner in which they acted with final results. I thank you.

Mr K S MUBU: Mr President, thank you very much for your lengthy answer and the details you gave. There is speculation that one of the ways in which you resolved this issue might be that a third country grants Mr Gbagbo political asylum. If that would be the case, would your government consider offering him asylum here maybe to replace Mr Aristide?

The PRESIDENT: Hon Speaker, firstly, we don't agree with giving any asylum to any leader who lost elections. Why should you leave your country if you lost elections? Why? We need to start there. We can't even look whether we can give an asylum. An asylum is given to someone who comes here and asks for it. By law, one cannot say I cannot give an asylum, unless it's not a political animal. The critical point is that it is wrong to say when a person loses elections he must leave the country. That would then be a funny democracy. We would actually oppose anyone who says Gbagbo must leave. That is what we said...

IsiZulu:

...ngaphambi kokuba kwehle izinkukhu. Kungani kuthiwa akahambe.

English:

That's all.

Mr H T MAGAMA: Mr President, let those who have ears hear that indeed a lot of work has been done by your good selves within the context of the African Union, AU.

Wouldn't you say that given what transpired in Cote d'Ivoire and elsewhere, our step as Parliament in ratifying the Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance is indeed a very good attempt? It sets us on the path moving forward in pre-empting such or preventing such occurrences in Africa. How far is the AU in implementing this Charter? Thank you so much.

The PRESIDENT: Hon Speaker, certainly our step to ratify was absolutely a good one, and many other countries have also done so. The AU is trying its level best to implement. I think we need to support the AU in what it does because there's a general acceptance in the continent that we need democracy in it as a way of life; and people are working very hard to do so.

That Charter helps because it gives us guidelines on how do we conduct business, as we go forward, on matters of this nature. As South Africa, we are guided by such principles and principles of believing in free and fare elections, as well as democratic decisions we are taking. So, the Parliament was right.

Source: Unrevised Transcript, Hansard, March 17 2011

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