Upon her election to office, Sirleaf made her first foreign trip as President to neighboring Ivory Coast, meeting with Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo in an attempt to repair relations between the two countries following Côte d'Ivoire's support of the Movement for Democracy in Liberia during the Second Liberian Civil War. During the 2010–2011 Ivorian crisis, Sirleaf, as chairperson of the Mano River Union, supported ECOWAS's recognition of Gbagbo's opponent, Alassane Ouattara, as the winner of the disputed presidential election, but rejected calls for a military solution to the crisis.