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The move was met by stinging criticism from Gbagbo's camp, which issued a threat to Choi on the evening newscast. "Mr. Choi is acting against the charter of the U.N. It's a travesty that a bureaucrat at the U.N. wants to designate the president of Ivory Coast," said Alcide Djedje, the country's permanent representative to the United Nations, who is an adviser to Gbagbo. "If he continues like this, we will ask him to leave Ivory Coast." The 68-year-old Ouattara, a former economist for the International Monetary Fund, held his own press conference a short while later. "The special representative of the Secretary-General just certified the results given by the Independent Electoral Commission which declares me the winner of the second round of the election," he said. "I am thus president of the Ivory Coast."
The African Union warned the government to put the nation first and to accept the results. "Any other approach risks plunging (Ivory Coast) into a crisis with incalculable consequences for the country, as well as for the region and the continent as a whole," the AU said in a statement. The country was placed on lockdown immediately after the commission announced Ouattara's win on Thursday, with a decree read on state TV saying the nation's air and land borders had been closed and that foreign TV and radio had been banned.
Associated Press staffer Rebecca Blackwell in Abidjan and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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