Presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire: four contenders for an armchair

It’s D-Day in Ivory Coast. Some 7.5 million voters (out of 25 million inhabitants) have the choice between four candidates: President Ouattara, 78, former President Henri Konan Bédié, 86, leader of the main opposition party, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, 67, former Prime Minister of Laurent Gbagbo, and outsider Kouadio Konan Bertin, 51, independent.

So, are Ivorians going to vote or follow the call for a boycott by the opposition? One thing is certain, the participation figures will be scrutinized with particular attention, since a large part of the legitimacy of the winner will depend on it.

On the material level, by the admission of the Independent Electoral Commission, acts of civil disobedience by opposition activists slowed down the distribution of voters’ cards, with less than half of the 7.5 million citizens registered on the lists which were able to withdraw their precious sesame.

Polling stations, which open at 8 a.m. (local and GMT), must close at 6 p.m. The electoral commission has five days to announce the results.

Psychosis is palpable

As in Guinea, where the re-election of President Alpha Condé for a contested third term caused unrest that resulted in some twenty deaths, the Ivorian opposition judges a third term “unconstitutional” and called on its supporters to “civil disobedience”, then to the “active boycott”.

The election in Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer, which has once again become the economic locomotive of French-speaking West Africa after ten years of strong growth, raises fears of a new crisis in a region hit by incessant jihadist attacks in the Sahel, by a putsch in Mali and a political protest at the neighboring Nigerian giant.

About 30 people have died since August in protests that have turned into inter-ethnic clashes in several towns across the country, and some 35,000 law enforcement personnel have been deployed to provide security at polling stations.

“All arrangements have been made to allow the population to vote […] in peace and quiet, ”said Security Minister Diomandé Vagondo on Friday evening.

“There will inevitably be incidents in opposition areas”, qualifies a security source, however. Thousands of Ivorians have left big cities, such as Abidjan or Bouaké, to return to their villages.

“I don’t want to relive what we experienced in 2010. If all goes well, we’ll come back. It all depends on what will happen, ”said Véronique Yao, a trader, leaving Abidjan.

Calls for calm are increasing

Still on Friday, disturbances were reported in Yamoussoukro, the political capital, or in the city of Bonoua about sixty kilometers east of Abidjan. The UN and the EU immediately called for the presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire “to take place in a peaceful manner”.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “urges all political and opinion leaders, as well as their supporters, to refrain from inciting violence, spreading disinformation and using hate speech “, Said in a statement his spokesperson, Stéphane Dujarric.

Antonio Guterres “encourages the authorities, including the security forces, to create a secure environment and to protect and enforce human rights during the electoral process” and “the political leaders and their parties to resolve any dispute that may happen through dialogue, ”added the spokesperson.

The European Union “associates itself with the statement by the Secretary General of the United Nations,” EU High Representative Josep Borrell said in a statement released on Friday evening.

The EU “expresses its greatest concern at the violent incidents and hate speech witnessed in recent weeks. It urges all political actors to show responsibility, restraint and reject any violence, ”he added. Finally, she calls on “the institutions in charge of the electoral process to ensure a transparent, credible and peaceful ballot”.

The decision of Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara to stand for a controversial third term has led to violence between supporters of rival camps, already killing around 30 people, especially in the south-east of the country.

Alassane Ouattara on his way to a third term

Many fear a major crisis, ten years after the post-election crisis resulting from the 2010 presidential election which left 3,000 dead, following the refusal of Laurent Gbagbo (who had been in power since 2000) to acknowledge his defeat to Alassane Ouattara.

“There is no electoral period without tension,” said Alassane Ouattara in an interview with AFP, while the two main opponents in the running, Henri Konan Bédié and Pascal Affi N’Guessan, called for a “boycott active ”of the“ electoral process ”and did not campaign.

“Why would it lack legitimacy? Nothing in the Election Code says that there must be four candidates. I would have liked to have Bédié and Affi N’Guessan to beat them again, ”added the president, who is aiming for a victory in the first round and is based on his economic record.

“There was no real campaign,” said Sylvain N’Guessan, political analyst, director of the Abidjan Strategy Institute, “Ouattara is going to be re-elected, but he has lost his aura, he has become a African president like the others, who clings to power ”.

Two political heavyweights living abroad, former President Laurent Gbagbo, 75, and former rebel leader and former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, 48, have been disqualified by the Constitutional Council, much to the chagrin of their supporters.

Laurent Gbagbo came out of nine years of media silence on Thursday to call for dialogue, on pain of “disaster”.

Anger, “I understand it and I share it. Why do we want to do a third term? We have to respect what we write, what we say. […] If we write one thing and do another, we are witnessing what is happening today, ”he said, while he is waiting in Belgium for a possible appeal before the International Criminal Court after having been acquitted at first instance.