A visit by the Equatoguinean leader to Abidjan last Saturday may have been aimed at mediating to end the feud between President Alassane Ouattara and his former ally Guillaume Soro, now exiled in Europe.
There are visits by heads of state the purpose of which is not officially announced and the one made last Saturday 28 December in Abidjan by President Teodoro Obiang Nguema could be one of them.
Presented as a working and friendly visit, Obiang’s trip to Cote d’Ivoire may have been with the agenda of ending the conflict between the Ivorian head of state Ouattara and his former protégé and former Speaker of the National Assembly Guillaume Soro, thanks to the latter’s links with the family of the the Equatoguinean president, including his son Theodorin Obiang,” said Ivorian political scientist, Claude Pregnon.
The official agenda of the meeting does not mention it.
But the proximity between President Obiang’s son and the former speaker suggests a “strong possibility that this case is part of the agenda of the meeting between the Ivorian and Equatorial Guinea’s heads of state,” he said.
Soro and Obiang have a solid relationship.
Informed by the great echo of the international arrest warrant issued against his Ivorian friend, Obiang Jr. is said to have initiated mediation through intermediaries.
“If there are negotiations, it’s good wars, especially ten months before the presidential elections, it could allow a political way out of the crisis,” however “beyond what one might think, the current crisis is not a national crisis,” said the political scientist.
Soro is perhaps the one who solicited these emissaries, because “in politics, the function does not exclude negotiation,” Pregnon observed.
Moreover, the Ivorian head of state Alassane Ouattara described the former head of the National Assembly as a rebellious son.
AP/ls/lb/as/APA