Political Jockeying Puts Cote d’Ivoire’s Reconciliation in Jeopardy

Earlier this month, Cote d’Ivoire’s opposition parties rejected Youssouf Bakayoko’s re-election as the head of the country’s election commission. Bakayoko, a member of President Alassane Ouattara’s ruling coalition, has served as head of the commission since it was set up in 2010. The rejection was a reminder of both the fractious nature of Ivorian politics and the deep ambivalence within the opposition Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) about reaching agreement with the Ouattara administration.
Reform of the electoral commission, which parliament approved in May 2014, was meant to be a further step in political reconciliation and normalization, but the new makeup provides a majority of seats on the commission for the ruling party. The dispute over Bakayoko’s re-election also reflects an ongoing power struggle within the FPI between the party’s president, Pascal Affi Nguessan, who favors re-engagement in mainstream Ivoirian politics, and hardline supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who still want to boycott the upcoming 2015 elections. The FPI has signaled that it is seeking new concessions from the government. A party congress at the end of the year will need to agree on the FPI’s new leadership and whether it will compete in the 2015 elections. If not resolved, those issues could result in a splitting of the party.
Many of the divisions that fueled Cote d’Ivoire’s earlier civil war persist. An official reconciliation effort through a commission, Verite et Reconciliation (Truth and Reconciliation), completed its mandate in September 2013. It was, however, a complete failure, in part because, despite Ouattara’s promise to hold his supporters to account for human rights abuses in 2010-2011, not one of his supporters was tried.
In this respect, Ouattara has staked out a position that is confusing to many Ivorians. He has refused to transfer Simone Gbagbo, the wife of the former president, to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, saying that the Ivoirian judicial system is competent to judge her. It seems Ouattara fears that by transferring her, he would come under additional pressure to deliver some of his own supporters to the ICC. This would be deeply destabilizing for him and his coalition in the short term, as prominent Ouattara supporters—such as Guillaume Soro, a former prime minister and rebel leader now serving as the president of the National Assembly—are known to be of interest to the court. 
Nevertheless, in March 2014, the government allowed Charles Ble Goude, a close ally of Gbagbo, to be transferred to The Hague and tried. Ble Goude was already in Ivoirian custody; handing him over to the ICC was politically timed to warn the opposition FPI of the power of incumbency.
Meanwhile, Cote d’Ivoire has maintained good relations with France under Ouattara. Although the U.N.-sponsored French peacekeeping mission is winding down, the bilaterally agreed French military presence will expand to an 800-soldier unit based in Abidjan. That could become an issue in the 2015 election, as the opposition FPI is ambivalent about deepening ties with France. The force is also a statement of support for Ouattara by France in the event of pre- or post-election violence.
Yet there is one other serious potential contender to the presidency: Guillaume Soro. As the former head of the rebel FN, he enjoys support in the north. And although Ouattara, as president, is technically also the minister of defense, in reality Soro enjoys the loyalty of the military because so many of the armed forces’ soldiers are former FN rebels. Soro’s support of Ouattara would further guarantee his re-election and might come as part of a deal by which Ouattara would stand aside and back Soro in 2020. The battle for power, therefore, is less over who will win the 2015 election than over who will succeed Ouattara in 2020.


Source: WPR ( World Politics Review )