The Ivorian Minister of Reconciliation and National Cohesion, Kouadio Konan Bertin, also known as “KKB,” said Monday that former Cote d’Ivoire’s National Assembly Speaker, Guillaume Soro, must “keep a low profile” before Alassane Ouattara, with whom he is at loggerheads.
Mr. Kouadio Konan Bertin was speaking at the inaugural conference of the Political Tribune of the diplomatic and political press organization of Cote d’Ivoire (OP-DP-CI) on the theme “Reconciliation and National Cohesion in Cote d’Ivoire: “Reasons to Believe in It,” at the Maison de l’Entreprise in Abidjan.
“If Alassane is Soro’s father and I confirm that he is his father, then if I love Guillaume Soro, as I claim to love him, I cannot give him any other advice apart from what he himself gave me in his time, namely that in front of Alassane, it is up to him to keep a low profile,” KKB said.
According to the Minister of Reconciliation and National Cohesion, Kouadio Konan Bertin, “There is a threshold that one does not cross when one is opposed to one’s father, in speeches. We do not help Soro Guillaume if we pretend to love him by urging him to stiffen his position against the President of the Republic.”
“That this dose of humility inhabits my brother Guillaume is only what is needed. I have tried to see him, but so far I have not succeeded (…); but if we meet face to face, I will tell him what I believe a friend and brother should say to another brother when you are in this situation.”
Mr. Kouadio Konan Bertin insisted that he would invite his brother Guillaume Soro to seize “the outstretched hand of President Alassane Ouattara. If the Ivorian head of state did it for former president Laurent Gbagbo, “there is no reason for it to be otherwise” for the former president of the National Assembly.
“You cannot be writing to support Guillaume in inflammatory positions and then subsequently accuse Alassane Ouattara of not doing anything for Guillaume Soro to be in the process (of reconciliation), I find that it is not honest, while we all know that this is how it will end,” he told reporters.
“Why do you want to give Guillaume (…) hope that he will overthrow Ouattara; so he is the one who is always there to overthrow regimes? No, Guillaume is not like thta, why stick it to his skin,” he went on, saying that “he is a friend, he is a brother” to whom he speaks from the heart.
Mr. KKB, Minister of Reconciliation and National Cohesion, appointed since December 15, 2020, added that he had been in Tchologo, Mr. Soro’s native region, located in the North. He said he knows the position of his parents who will never accept to see their son in an “arm wrestle with Alassane Ouattara.”
Guillaume Soro is currently out of Cote d’Ivoire. After he refused to join the ruling Rhdp, the party of Alassane Ouattara, relations have deteriorated with his mentor ever since.
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