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Cote d'Ivoire's presidential poll to be held on time: official

Xinhua, January 15, 2015 Adjust font size:

Cote d'Ivoire's presidential elections scheduled for October 2015 will be held on time, a senior official of the country's Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) said Wednesday.

"We are committed to holding elections in October and we believe we shall be ready by then despite the fact that we have a lot to accomplish," CEI vice-president Sourou Kone said.

He was speaking in Abidjan after holding talks with Mohammed Ayat, the UN's new independent human rights expert on Cote d'Ivoire.

"Everything possible will be done to ensure that every Cote d'Ivoire national who has attained voting age will freely and peacefully exercise his civic duty," Kone said.

The CEI official said the UN independent expert "was satisfied" with the progress made on the electoral process.

"The expert wanted to know whether the elections will be held in a peaceful climate and we confirmed to him that we were working to ensure human rights will be respected during the elections," Kone said.

He added that the UN expert mentioned to the CEI team that "the whole world was concerned about Cote d'Ivoire's forthcoming elections."

October elections are believed to be key in restoration of lasting peace in Cote d'Ivoire after the deadly post-election violence in 2010-2011. Endi