Ivory Coast poll plan faces 'serious delays': UN

By Louis Charbonneau

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A senior U.N. official said on Tuesday that planning for Ivory Coast's long-delayed presidential election was behind schedule, casting doubt on the government's ability to organize a poll this year.

Ivory Coast President Laurent Gbagbo said last week that the election in the world's top cocoa supplier must take place in 2009, a change of wording from previous statements insisting that the West African nation would meet a November 29 target date.

But U.N. special envoy to Ivory Coast Young-Jin Choi said after addressing a closed-door meeting of the Security Council that the electoral process was severely behind schedule.

"There are delays, serious delays," he told reporters.

He cited as an example problems with the provisional voter list. Ivorian officials have said that the list was completed and in the hands of Gbagbo, but Choi said it was neither ready nor published.

"When the date of November 29 was fixed ... in May, the publication of the provisional list was foreseen in August," he said. "But still, as of today, we do not have that list."

"That means that we have lost at least three months out of five months," he added. "So you can make your own judgment."

Presidential elections in the country also known by its French name of Cote d'Ivoire, still scarred by a 2002-03 civil war that divided it in two, have been delayed repeatedly for four years in a tortuous peace process.