Opposition parties in Ivory Coast staged protests today as the west African country awaited the annoucement of a new government after President Laurent Gbagbo scrapped the previous one. The protests are growing in volatility as a nation awaits a government in flux.

The head of the former rebel New Forces (FN), Guillaume Soro, whom Gbagbo reappointed as prime minister, arrived in the political capital Yamoussoukro for talks with the head of state.

Since Gbagbo caused an outcry Friday by dissolving the government and sacking the head of the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI), the main question has been whether the opposition will take part in Soro’s new team.

Soro has been consulting with both Gbagbo and the main opposition coalition, the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), which has demanded the reinstatement of the vote commission if it is to take part in government.

“Our position hasn’t changed,” RHDP spokesman Alphonse Djedje Mady told the Associated Free Press today, stating that no progress had been made in his view.

Gbagbo’s decision after a spat with the electoral commission over voter registration is certain to delay yet again a presidential poll that was scheduled for early March.

Frustration is growing at years of delays to a vote meant to restore peace to West Africa’s former economic hub after a 2002-3 war divided it between Gbagbo’s government and rebels.

The opposition has called for big street protests, raising the specter of violence in the world’s top cocoa grower, though protests have thus far remained peaceful.

In the main city of Abidjan however, a protester seized and set fire to a bus belonging to a national transport company.

“A vandal amongst the bus passengers sprayed the bus with flammable liquid,” said Thomas Koffi, the transport manager.

“Ever since the president’s decision … we’ve been confronted by these acts of vandalism.”

The opposition suspects that Gbagbo wants to take control of the electoral commission, dominated by his opponents until he dissolved it and sacked its president, Robert Beugre Mambe, who was accused of fraud in the voters’ roll. The RHDP’s youth movement, which announced the protest marches of the past few days, warned that opposition in the streets to Gbagbo’s dual dissolutions will mount at the weekend.

New demonstrations took place on Thursday, after scuffles and arrests on Wednesday in Yamoussoukro.

At Bouake, the FN stronghold in central Ivory Coast, more than 1,000 people blocked off the main street with pieces of wood and burning tyres, while some protesters vandalised shops.

“We don’t want Gbagbo,” marchers shouted.

Other opposition rallies took place in the region at Beoumi and Sakassou. In Sakassou, demonstrators clashed with police, residents said.

Gbagbo’s supporters have accused the opposition of “acts of sabotage.”

Soro’s new team will be tasked with leading the country to presidential elections, which have six times been postponed since Gbagbo’s mandate expired in 2005.

In a Reuters interview in London, the head of the London Club group of commercial creditors, Thierry Desjardins, said a lack of effective government in Ivory Coast could delay a restructuring of 2.2 billion euros of debt that was meant to be exchanged by April.

Despite the civil war and years of subsequent crisis, cocoa in Ivory Coast has not yet seriously been disrupted.