UN chief welcomes provisional voter list for long-delayed Ivory Coast election
Long-suffering voters in Ivory Coast may at last have reason to cheer, after UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said the publication of a provisional voter list was a key step towards organising the country's long-delayed presidential elections. The world's top cocoa producer has been split since the end of a 2002-03 civil war, with elections delayed five times by a tortuous peace process between the south and largely Islamic north. There are also questions of ethnicity in a nation that is bordered by five other countries (including those that recently fought brutal civil wars), and that once legislated that both parents must be Ivorian for voters to register for the polls. In addition, the poll is complicated by red tape, logistics and identification of voters who do not have birth certificates. Read more: Reuters, BBC
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