Lobbying for a controversial leader

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Washington lawyer and lobbyist Lanny Davis is representing Laurent Gbagbo, the incumbent president of Ivory Coast who is refusing international calls to step down after a disputed election and violent clashes. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Davis about the challenges of representing a client whom the international community considers to be the bad guy. Download MP3

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MARCO WERMAN:  I’m Marco Werman, This is The World.

Things are getting more and more tense in Ivory Coast.  An election dispute has left a west African nation with two men claiming to be President.  Incumbent Laurent Gbagbo is refusing to give her power even though the International community believes Allassane Ouattara is the rightful winner.  Ouattara is hold up in a hotel in Abidjan.  There have been violence between the two sides and there’s concern that more could break out.  Lanny Davis represents the government of Ivory Coast in Washington.  His former special counsel to former President Bill Clinton and a practicing lawyer but he says his client is not   Laurent Gbagbo and his role is not that of a lobbyist.

LANNY DAVIS:  I’ve been engaged by the government of Ivory Coast to try to find a solution that did not involve violence.  My mission is not to say who won the election or lost the election or who is right or who is wrong but rather try to find a peaceful solution.

WERMAN:  This past Monday you said in a press conference that Mr. Gbagbo poses violence and has authorized you to say he wants a neutral renunciation of violence and to sit down and talk.   What would Mr. Ouattara and Mr. Gbagbo actually talk about at this point and what would that do.

DAVIS:  What did we do in the United States four months between November 2000 and the announcement of the election of George Bush.  We sorted out the evidence, and we tried to see whether the allegations of both sides could be a substantiated factually and then hopefully went to the Supreme Court.  Because of the violence on both sides here, we need international presence to put down the violence and to at least establish a mechanism for determining whether there was fraud and whether defected the results and whether that would require a new election or whether it would require decision that Mr. Ouattara won notwithstanding the fraud.  In any case, the way to stop the violence is not everybody jumped to conclusions without looking at the evidence and that’s all I’ve been hired to do, is to concierge (sp) that.

WERMAN:  I mean Laurent Gbagbo is saying that UN is at war with Ivory Coast and he wants him out, it sounds like working across purposes from what you want Mr. Davis.

DAVIS:  Well, certainly that’s very heated rhetoric.  I think you may, if you said it at all and I don’t know whether you can know whether you actually said those  words just because we read it on the Internet but that’s assume we did.  Those words are probably referring to the gentlemen who headed the election observation force who immediately pronounce Mr. Outtara the victor when there certainly were questions about what happened in the North.  He was quite upset by that because the UN observers were supposed to be neutral and not jumping to conclusions.  If he’s saying at war, when he’s talking about brave peacekeepers who are neutral and are trying to get people who would put their guns down and there are very, very passionate feelings on both sides here leading to violence, then I certainly don’t agree with me on that. He made a statement last night just so you’re up-to-date that I think reflects on if not my advice then it’s parallel with my advice, I’m told that he has listened to some other things I’ve been saying and the statement he made last night was, please Mr. Ouattara, let’s come together.  Let’s both renounce violence and let’s have international mediation you name.  Number of countries that would help such as the United States and European Union.

WERMAN:  The same time the UN is saying that supply trucks is being prevented from reaching the hotel in Abidjan where Allasane Ouattara is staying it.  Doesn’t sound like Laurent Gbagbo really wants to talk.  I mean Allasane see he see.  What do you think?

DAVIS:  You’re in good company I don’t mean to personalize this to you conducting the interview but sounds like you are repeating all of the news reports that are negative about Mr. Gbagbo and none that are negative about Mr. Outtara and asking me how can Mr. Gbagbo do such a thing.  I think what’s going on is that the UN appears to have taken sides and is not engaging in neutral peacekeeping and if it become a partisan force in the mind of Mr. Gbagbo and I don’t know the answer to your question.

WERMAN:  But it’s not just the UN.  It’s also the United States, the European Union, the World Bank.

DAVIS:  It’s the whole world and if you ask one of those, have you read the Supreme Court decision of Ivory Coast which sided specifically why it rendered the verdict that Mr. Gbagbo won by 51 percent.

WERMAN:  Have you travelled to Ivory Coast and do you feel you have a pretty good handle on what at stakes there right now?

DAVIS:  I really don’t have any handle and I have a job also, so your point is well taken.  That’s why I don’t want to verify any statements made by my client unless I can verify them to be true, just as I wouldn’t verify statements made by Mr. Ouatarra if I couldn’t verify that they are true.  It seems that the International community is basing each judgment on news reports.  And the United Nation which was supposed to be present and supposed to be a neutral very quickly jumped the gun and pronounced the victor even before the Supreme Court’s decision could be read and examined.  I would think that they would take that back and take a little time.  It wouldn’t have created this kind of attention.  Had everybody said OK there’s a dispute here, it looks like Mr. Ouattara won but the Supreme Court and Mr. Gbagbo believed that the fraud that occurred in the North that their cited specifically in the decision looks like Mr. Gbagbo has won.  We have an election contest, let’s resolve this peacefully rather than the whole world jumping and announcing including my own government, United States, who the winner is.

WERMAN:  What do you getting paid for representing, if we can use that word, Ivory Coast?

DAVIS:  The answers is I’m being paid $300,000.

WERMAN:  And how long is your retainer for with Ivory Coast?

DAVIS:  Well, right now it’s three months and then we’re gonna  reevaluate.

WERMAN:  Lanny Davis is a Crisis Management advisor hired by the Ivory Coast.  Lanny Davis thanks for speaking with us.

DAVIS:  Thank you.

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