They started as rumours regarding flirtations between some highly-placed persons in the Mills administration and the illegal regime of Laurent Gbagbo next-door.

These persons were even alleged to have attended the worldwide unrecognized inauguration of the sit-tight president, with one of them serving as his advisor.

Their position in the government of President Mills casts a shadow over our record as a trustworthy member of the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU) and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

With the stand-off between the defeated Laurent Gbagbo on one hand and the man who won the polls, Alassane Ouattara and the UN on the other, nearing boiling point, sufficient evidence is beginning to emerge about the unwholesome political flirtation.

It is a worrying trend which can be considered a stab in the back of the UN and the regional grouping, ECOWAS, by a president who preaches one thing and practises another on the blind side of the media.

Such developments, in view of our proximity to the smoking country, must be cause for alarm. There are sufficient grounds for us to question the sincerity of our President in the whole political saga as it unfolds.

Given the speed with which the embattled and floundering regime is hiring some unscrupulous journalists in the country, and their readiness to compromise good political judgment for money, there is the need for such underhand dealings to be exposed.

Not satisfied with the radio station interventions, they have now turned to issuing funny statements in a useless bid to bolster the moribund regime of Gbagbo.

Names of journalists now on the payroll of the Ivorian regime, alongside the ambivalent position of the Mills government, do not do our image any good in the international community and the earlier we moved against them the better.

The so-called Socialist International solidarity binding the smelly Ivorian regime and their local lackeys is a useless enterprise with no room for the national interest.

The foreign missions in the country have gathered enough materials on the flirtations to fill their home-bound diplomatic pouches, telltale revelations about double standards of a government.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) and their 2012 flag-bearer raised an important issue about the need for President Mills, and government for that matter, to state in unambiguous terms their position on the Ivorian affair.

Such a demand was made by us in an editorial earlier, but all we got was a response shrouded in ambiguity. With the revelations we are getting now, we can safely draw our conclusions that the bond between our President and his friend next door overshadows what the UN, African Union and ECOWAS are demanding of the rogue Gbagbo.

Our membership of the aforementioned international and regional bodies would definitely be undermined by the emerging facts of diplomatic double standards.

We are appalled by the lack of discretion on the part of Laurent Gbagbo when he boasted to Africa Report magazine that President Mills is one head of state upon whose support he can count.

At a time that our President hosted an Ivorian delegation from his Gbagbo friend, he dangled the ambivalent card. He preached peace as he subtly avoided telling his friend, as the UN, AU, ECOWAS, EU and almost the rest of the world did, to let go power.