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| - Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara will meet his main rival on Wednesday for talks on ending election-linked violence, the government said, as it updated the death toll from the clashes to 85. Ouattara "will hold a meeting this afternoon with the president of the PDCI, Mr. Henri Konan Bedie, at 5pm," Communications Minister Sidi Tiemoko Toure said, referring to the Ivory Coast Democratic Party. Ouattara, 78, won the October 31 election by more than 94 percent. But he also faces deep anger among opposition supporters, who say he breached the country's two-term presidential limits. Deadly violence -- often tinged by ethnic rivalry -- erupted in August after Ouattara announced his bid for a third spell in office, arguing that a 2016 revision of the constitution reset the term counter to zero. Toure told reporters that the official toll since August now stood at 85 dead and 484 injured, many of them in the southeast of the country. Of the fatalities, 34 occurred before the election, 20 on voting day and 31 afterwards. He added that 225 people had been arrested, of whom 45 were in custody and 167 had been charged. The opposition has refused to acknowledge the results of the election, launched what it calls a campaign of civil disobedience and vowed to set up a transitional government to replace Ouattara. Several opposition leaders, including former prime minister Pascal Affi N'Guessan, the opposition's spokesman, have been arrested, and the homes of others are being blockaded by security forces. The bloodshed has stirred traumatic memories of a standoff following elections in 2010 that led to a civil war, claiming around 3,000 lives. The scheduled meeting between Ouattara and Bedie, an 86-year-old former president, comes amid a clamour from international bodies and Ivory Coast's neighbours for efforts to ease the tension. The country is the world's top cocoa producer, francophone West Africa's largest economy and its major city, Abidjan, is a regional business hub. Ouattara, in a speech on Monday, proposed a meeting with Bedie, whom he respectfully described as his "elder." On Wednesday, the PDCI set down several conditions for such talks, including the lifting of the blockades and the end of judicial procedures against arrested leaders. The blockade around Bedie's home had been lifted as of early afternoon on Wednesday, but was still in place around the home of fellow opposition leader Assoa Adou, Adou told AFP. The venue for the meeting has historic resonance in Ivory Coast. It is the Golf Hotel in Abidjan, where Ouattara, as president-elect, set up his headquarters during the 2010 post-election crisis, along with his erstwhile allies, which included Bedie. pgf/de/sba/ri/ach
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