Crisis in Ivory Coast

A presidential election that was supposed to reunify Ivory Coast after a 2002 civil war divided the north and south has threatened to split the country once again as the incumbent president is holding on to power despite losing the election.

The election pitted long time opposition leader Alassane Ouattara against the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo, who has been in power since 2000, overstaying his constitutional term by five years. Ouattara, who draws support from the largely Muslim north, was recognized by Ivory Coast’s Electoral Commission and independent election observers including the UN, US, and EU as the winner of the election by a nine point margin.  But Gbagbo, who draws support from the largely Christian south, has refused to accept these results, employing a mixture of force, election technicalities, and thinly veiled kleptocracy to remain in power.

Earlier this week, both took an oath of office, setting up two parallel governments in the already divided country. Gbagbo and his coalition remain entrenched in the Presidential complex while Ouattara has set up office and conducted cabinet meetings in the basement of a faded luxury hotel, which is heavily protected by UN peacekeepers. Adding to the threat of violence is that both camps have military backing. Gbagbo reportedly is still in control of the national military while Ouattara’s newly appointed Prime Minister, Guillame Soro, is the leader of the well armed rebel “New Forces” in the north. Although violence at this point has remained sporadic, both camps are watching one another warily with neither showing signs of backing down – a nightmare scenario with the very real possibility of a renewed civil war.

The Backstory

Ivory Coast was long seen as a haven of peace and prosperity in West Africa. Ruled since independence from France in 1960 by Félix Houphouët-Boigny until his death in 1993, Ivory Coast was never a bastion of democracy, but it was for stability and economic success. As the world’s largest cocoa producer, living standards in Ivory Coast were much higher than in its West African neighbors – some of the poorest countries in the world. For this reason, Ivory Coast’s economic success attracted large numbers of immigrants, many of which settled in the north of the country due to familial, religious, and ethnic ties.

But in the 1990s as global prices for the country’s cocoa, coffee, and cotton fell, civil unrest rose. Many Ivorians began to resent the one party state and after a period of strikes by civil servants, Houphouët-Boigny conceded to the first multi party elections in 1990. Although Houphouët-Boigny won these elections, his death three years later opened up political space that previously did not exist. Filling this power vacuum with democratic, multi party politics has been at the core of much of Ivory Coast’s troubles since.

But the political instability caused by this power vacuum and the introduction of multi party politics was augmented and exacerbated by ethnic tensions that were previously suppressed. In office, Houphouët-Boigny was careful to avoid ethnic dispites – making sure, for example, that a member of each ethnic group was represented in his cabinet. Following his death, however, populist politicians exploited these tensions in part to carve out their own political space by isolating, dividing, and eventually disenfranchising opposition groups.

Issues of nationality and ethnicity were exploited in particular by Houphouët-Boigny’s successor, Henri Konan Bédié the President of the National Assembly, who assumed the Presidency after a brief power struggle with Ouattara, who was Prime Minister at the time. In office, Bédié popularized the term “Ivorité,” French for “Ivoriness” or “Ivority” as part of a campaign to protect the cultural identity of the Ivorian people. In reality, Bédié’s Ivorité campaign was xenophobic and divisive as the large number of first and second generation migrants – a quarter of the total population – became subjects of intense discrimination.

Cultural identity continued to become such a polarizing issue that by the 1995 elections following Bédié’s transitional presidency many northerners were refused national identity cards and the right to vote. Ouattara was banned from running outright because officials claimed his parents were from Burkina Faso, thereby disqualifying him due to an electoral reform law Bédié passed. Ouattara’s Rally of Republicans party (RDR) as well as the other main opposition party, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), headed by Gbagbo, boycotted the elections. Bédié won with 96% of the vote.

Political instability, ethnic tensions, and economic malaise continued over the next four years leading to a 1999 military coup that ousted Bédié and replaced him with retired General Robert Guéï, a former member of Houphouët-Boigny’s government. Guéï pledged he would allow new legislative and presidential elections within the year and that he would not be a candidate. While Guéï kept his first promise and delivered elections in 2000, he broke his second and ran for the presidency. This time Gbagbo did stand for election, representing the FPI, but Ouattara was still disqualified due to his alleged Burkinabe nationality, despite producing a birth certificate showing otherwise. Gbagbo won the election, but it was not without incident as Guéï refused to relinquish power and only did so after a spate of street protests resulted in over 150 deaths as rioters clashed with security forces.

But Ouattara’s disqualification a second time did not sit well with his large constituency in the north. This nominal disenfranchisement of northern voters, combined with the actual disenfranchisement of thousands over nationality disputes and years of state sponsored discrimination boiled over on the morning of September 19^th, 2002 when a group of northern soldiers mutinied with simultaneous attacks in multiple cities across the country starting the Ivorian civil war. Pro government forces responded and clashed with the rebels. The rebel forces quickly took control of the north and were close to taking control of the capital, Abidjan, which lies on the Southeastern edge of the country, but French forces intervened.

Although a cease fire was signed a month later and a peace agreement was first signed in 2003, many of the major political and ethnic issues that ignited the civil war – nationality, voting rights, and qualifications for holding office – remained unsettled and the rebel controlled north and government controlled south remained divided. Outbreaks of violence continued to occur regularly until a 2007 peace sharing agreement created a new transitional government with Soro, leader of the rebel “New Forces”, as Prime Minister and Gbagbo remaining as President. The peace deal also set the terms of the most recent election – notably, that Ouattara would be allowed to run and that the UN had to certify the election results for them to be valid.

The 2010 Presidential Elections

Thus the runoff Presidential election that took place two weeks ago carried historic significance – it was the culmination of the 2007 peace deal designed to finally reunify the country.

But who won the election?

The Ivory Coast Electoral Commission, an independent body charged with administering the election and counting the votes confirmed Ouattara as the winner with 54% of the votes compared with Gbagbo’s 46%. Election observers for the UN, US, and EU all confirmed these results recognizing Ouattara as the winner. On Tuesday, November 31^st, as the Electoral Commission was about to announce these results on national television, a member of Gbagbo’s camp physically grabbed them and tore them up (watch a video of the incident here). Speaking under armed guard at a hotel two days later on Thursday, December 2^nd, the electoral Commission head, Youssouf Bakoyak, proceeded with the announcement naming Ouattara the winner.

Soon after, however, Paul Yao N’Dre, a known ally of Gbagbo and head of the Constitutional Council, a government body charged with verifying the election results, said that the results of the Electoral Commission were “null and void” because they came after the legal deadline of Wednesday, December 1^st. Speaking for the Council, he then announced Gbagbo as the winner of the election by a count of 51% to 49% after nullifying results of seven northern regions where Ouattara draws the most support. N’Dre cited voter intimidation of Gbagbo supporters as the reason for discounting the regions, saying, “The irregularities are of such a nature that they invalidate the vote.”

The UN mission in Ivory Coast said that it did receive reports of violence in parts of the west and north during the election, but overall voting seemed peaceful and any irregularities did not overturn the overall results reported by the Electoral Commission – a key detail as the 2007 peace deal requires the election results to be verified by the UN. Thus even granting the Constitutional Council’s decision, Gbagbo still does not have a constitutionally valid claim to the presidency.

A country in peril

While constitutional technicalities are disputed, life in the Ivory Coast is growing increasingly tense as the deadlock between the parallel governments continues. Over the past two weeks tens of thousands of people have demonstrated against Gbagbo, particularly in the northern city of Bouaké, a stronghold of the 2002 rebellion. Protests in the capital, Abidjan, have been suppressed by soldiers and riot police. Reports are emerging that the government’s “death squads” have returned – secret gangs of soldiers that beat, abduct, and kill people in the night – a brutal intimidation tactic used by pro government forces during the civil war.

In addition to living under the threat of violence, Ivorians are suffering economically as the election crisis continues. Meat, fish, and fuel are running short and BBC reporters have found that the price of sugar has tripled in some areas, while beef and potatoes have risen by 25% to 60%.

Foreign radio and television broadcasts are blocked and the state television broadcasts still referring to Mr Gbagbo as President with the road to the station guarded by Ivorian troops still under Gbagbo’s control.

To date, little progress has been made to end the political stalemate, with both parties entrenched and seemingly unwilling to compromise. Last week, Thabo Mbeki, former president of South Africa and a key negotiator during the Ivorian civil war and in the 2008 election dispute between Mugabe and Tsvangirai in Zimbabwe that ended in a power sharing agreement, was called in to meet with both parties. However, Mbeki left after two days of deadlock.

But a compromise between the two, particularly some sort of power sharing deal, may not be the best solution. With the risk of a renewed civil war at worst and continued violence and food shortages at best it is clear that a solution needs to be found as soon as possible. But solving the crisis with a power sharing deal, after Gbagbo lost by nearly a ten point margin, sets a dangerous precedent and may only serve to cause continued resentment and instability in the divided country. Making this very point, Botswana’s president Khama Ian Khama strongly condemned Gbagbo’s actions and any peace sharing deal saying, “Elections there were hijacked by the ruling party and if that’s going to happen every time someone wants to dispute an election result and then may stay in power by default through a mechanism of power sharing – it’s wrong!”

What then can be done to end this political stalemate? For now mounting international pressure is being applied to Gbagbo and his camp in the hopes of making his position no longer tenable, forcing him to concede the election. Last week, after a meeting of seven regional heads of state, ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, issued a statement recognizing Ouattara as the winner of the election saying that Gbagbo should “yield power without delay in the best interest of the Ivorian people.” Meanwhile, ECOWAS has suspended Ivory Coast from all of the bloc’s activities. Likewise, the African Union suspended Ivory Coast on Thursday until Gbagbo hands over power to Ouattara. The UN Security Council became involved last week, affirming Ouattara as the winner and threatening to put sanctions on any person obstructing the peace process or the UN mission in the country. Similarly, the US and the EU are both reportedly considering targeted sanctions on Gbagbo and his supporters, possibly including visa bans and asset freezes.

While this strategy of attrition may be the best method for the international community to help bring an end to the crisis, it is one that depends on time – a resource that appears to be rapidly diminishing. Meanwhile, citizens of Ivory Coast remain in a divided country.

Developing Democracies will continue to update on this story as it progresses.

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