Gentlemen, Start Your Campaigns: Cote d’Ivoire’s Election Line-up
Confirmation has finally been made of what had been expected for weeks: Alassane Ouattara will stand for a third consecutive term as president of Cote d’Ivoire following the sudden death of his nominated successor, Amadou Gon Coulibaly. With only two months to go until polling day, the fact that key potential challengers are currently in exile and have prison terms hanging over their heads if they return to the country, Ouattara, aided by the power of incumbency, will likely come out on top. But the road will not be smooth notably because Ouattara’s standing is challenging the spirit of Cote d’Ivoire’s two term limit, which the opposition won’t take lightly.
Who’s Who
Ouattara has been keen to stress that standing was not his initial intention and that he is sacrificing his life for politics in order to ensure peace and stability in the country. Having been elected a decade ago, the 78 year-old is by far the favoured candidate. He has overseen a decade of strong, positive economic growth, averaging 7.1% between 2016 and 2018. However, opposition parties have been very clear in stating that they see his attempt at a third term as unconstitutional and illegal. Indeed, Article 55 of the 2016 constitution states clearly that, “The President of the Republic is elected for five years by direct universal suffrage. He may be re-elected only once”. The grey area Ouattara will rely on is in the principle of non-retroactivity of the 2016 constitution (i.e.that his two terms served under the previous constitution will not count).
Former president Henri Konan Bedie, remembered as a protegeof Houphouet-Boigny, is a long-standing adversary of Ouattara despite their parties having belonged to the Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP) alliance for many years. His campaign is keen to associate his age (86) with experience and he insists that he is running for the betterment of the youth. Rumours have long abounded about his health and he will struggle to connect with a relatively young electorate. Despite this, he is likely to provide the most competition to Ouattara (if former president Laurent Gbagbo is unable to stand). Already in central-eastern Daoukro, from where Bedie hails, at least three people have died in pro Bedie and pro Ouattara clashes.
Though Ouattara’s predecessor Gbagbo has been formally asked by a wing of the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) to be their candidate, the reality is that he still can’t get a passport to re-enter the country. Having been acquitted at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in January 2019 after serving eight years in prison in Belgium for his role in the 2010-11 civil war, Gbagbo faces a prison term in Cote d’Ivoire if he returns home. He was sentenced to 20 years in absentia for post-election-related looting. Many of the protestors in Bonoua, in the south-eastern commune of Grand Bassam, have been heard chanting “Gbagbo ou rien” (Gbagbo or nothing), showing his unwavering support base.These protests in the hometown of former first lady Simone Gbagbo have led to at least one reported death in clashes between pro-Gbagbo supporters and law enforcement.
One of Ouattara’s former proteges, Guillaume Soro seemingly overstepped his boundaries as chairman of the National Assembly by challenging authority one too many times and ended up resigning from that post and leaving the RHDP last year . He has launched a new party, Générations et peuples solidaires, which has rapidly grown to over 400,000 members, showing that he does have a solid support base, mostly but not exclusively centred around his home stronghold of Ferkessedougou in the north of the country. He is currently in exilein France, having been tried in absentia over money laundering claims and sentenced to 20 years imprisonment. A former rebel leader who once upon a time supported Ouattara, Soro holds sway within sections of the military. Translating that influence into something tangible would mean unrest but with civil conflict within living memory, war fatigue could be the saving grace for the nation’s peace.
Supporting cast: The main FPI has selected its former candidate, Pascal Affi N’Guessan who came a distant second to Ouattara in 2015. Marcel Amon-Tanoh has also announced his candidacy. Until his resignation in March he was Ouattara’s foreign minister. Little is also known of the intentions of former vice president, Daniel Kablan Duncan who officially left his post in mid-July.
Outlook
Ouattara’s decision to stand for a third term will draw contempt from the opposition and likely legal challenges to his interpretation of the law, in which he sees no incongruity with the 2016 constitution. Questions surrounding impartiality will also be asked of state bodies such as the electoral commission (CEI) and the Constitutional Council, with the latter being led by Mamadou Kone, a staunch Ouattara ally.
A possible opposition strategy would be to delay the elections such that the 31 October date is not respected, in the hope that such a scenario would force negotiations if the president goes beyond his mandate. But the president may already have that move covered under Article 59 of the constitution which states that the incumbent president’s term “[expires] on the date when the President-elect” takes office.
What cannot be so easily controlled is that which happens outside of the law. The extent of civil disturbance is intimately tied to how fair the electoral process is perceived to be by political actors and moreover, their constituents. Election-related violence triggered by presidents who try to overstay their welcome has precedent in Cote d’Ivoire: a decade ago, 3000 Ivorians were killed when Gbagbo tried to extend his mandate beyond 10 years, yet international and domestic intervention prevented him from doing so, paving the way for Ouattara to lead.