Reuters - Ivory Coast will hold a long-delayed presidential election on Nov. 29, Prime Minister Guillaume Soro said on Thursday, adding that the date was “realistic” after several previous deadlines have slipped.

The poll is meant to reunite the world’s top cocoa grower after a brief 2002-2003 war left the north of the country in the hands of rebels, and previous election deadlines have slipped during a tortuous United Nations-backed peace process.

Six million Ivorians have now been registered to vote but the electoral lists still need to be verified and the thorny question of whether the northern rebels will disarm ahead of the polls must still be addressed.

“Nov. 29 is a realistic date. We think we have more clarity and visibility on the electoral process,” Soro said after a cabinet meeting on Thursday.

The last date given by the Ivorian authorities for a poll was Nov. 30, 2008.

Questions over nationality and who is eligible to vote have been at the heart of the Ivorian crisis but analysts say the electoral process has also been complicated and dragged out by all sides profiting from the uncertainty.

A U.N. panel of experts warned last month that former belligerents were re-arming and there was a high risk of violence, especially in the north, if any of the parties felt their economic interests were threatened.