Ivory Coast Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny named his cabinet on Wednesday, personally taking control of the Finance Ministry and including rebel leaders from the war-divided country, according to Reuters. The new government had been anxiously awaited as a key step towards tackling disarmament and electoral reforms to allow presidential elections next year under a U.N. peace plan. Ivory Coast was split in two by a civil war in 2002. Economist Banny formed the cabinet, taking the joint economy and finance portfolio, after several weeks of haggling between himself, supporters and opponents of President Laurent Gbagbo and rebels who occupy the northern half of the country. He included two rebel leaders -- Guillaume Soro as minister of reconstruction and reinsertion and Soro's deputy, Louis Dakoury Tabley, as minister of war victims. Shortly after the cabinet was announced, angry supporters of Gbagbo took to the streets in protest in the country's economic capital Abidjan, blocking main roads and burning tyres. They complained Gbagbo supporters had too few jobs in the cabinet. --More 22 03 Local Time 19 03 GMT
