Topic: Guillaume Soro

Guillaume Kigbafori Soro (born 8 May 1972 in Ferkessédougou, Côte d'Ivoire) has served as the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire since 4 April 2007. Prior to his service as Prime Minister, Soro led the Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire and later the New Forces rebel group as its Secretary-General.

A Roman Catholic from Diawala in the north of the country, Soro led the rebel Patriotic Movement of Côte d'Ivoire (MPCI) in a September 2002 rebellion against the government of President Laurent Gbagbo that triggered the Ivorian Civil War. In December 2002 Soro's MPCI combined with two other rebel groups - Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West (MPIGO) and Movement for Justice and Peace (MJP) - to form the les Forces Nouvelles de Côte d'Ivoire (New Forces). He became Secretary-general of the group.

Following a peace agreement in January 2003, Soro joined the government as communications minister in April 2003. The New Forces ministers began a boycott of the government in September 2003 and returned to the government in January 2004. After an opposition demonstration held in Abidjan was violently broken up in March 2004, Soro and other former rebel and opposition ministers began boycotting the government. In turn, Gbagbo dismissed Soro from his position, along with two other ministers, on 19 May 2004. Soro denounced this move, saying that it was effectively a coup by Gbagbo against the peace agreement. On 9 August 2004 Soro attended a cabinet meeting and was reinstated in his position. On 28 December 2005, Soro was appointed minister of reconstruction and reintegration in the government of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny; in this position he became the second ranking member of the government, after the prime minister. He did not, however, attend a cabinet meeting in this capacity until 15 March 2006.