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Ivory Coast will hold elections in a year, and political leaders are preparing for this deadline. They are concerned about whether young people who have reached voting age will be able to register to vote and choose the president they want for their country, and who the qualified candidates will be in these elections. Political party groups held meetings and issued statements with the aim of making their voices heard by those in power on these two topics, which involve citizen participation, one of the basic principles of democracy. Democracy is a decentralized power that is held by the people through the choice of their representatives, not through violence but through the peaceful choice of the voters.
Citizens’ participation in the selection of their representatives is also based on another right they recognize, that of freedom to speak and express their opinions on various issues, including those related to the management of the country for which they are responsible. Power in a democracy does not belong to the richest, the most powerful, the strongest. But everyone has a voice and democracy recognizes this. Côte d’Ivoire has rich historical lessons in the march towards democracy. After a decade of rebellion and civil war, the country has returned to a stormy electoral path that ended in protests, leaving nothing changed, as at the beginning of independence, without the monopoly of a single party. The next elections seem to be the hope for change, although there is no noticeable change in the political operatives participating in the elections, except for the arrival of young knives who want to put their old mentors to rest. Who are the potential candidates? What are their strengths and weaknesses?
The first president of Côte d’Ivoire was Félix Dias Houphouët-Boigny, the father of independence. Are heads of state in Africa elected after independence by popular vote? In most cases no, the French community held a referendum and Houphouët-Boigny, as president of the territorial parliament, declared Côte d’Ivoire independent after a period of support, then opposition, and finally support. The first presidential election was held in 1965, with a single party and single candidate, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, in power.
A road to democracy paved with thorns and blood
The Houphouët-Boigny regime was not a dictatorship with some success on the economic level. Houphouët-Boigny ruled the country, firmly excluding his opponents, until 1985, with elections that bore a striking resemblance to those in Russia: one country, one party, one candidate. In this respect, even as he broke with the French Communist Party, he adopted what the Russian Communist Party had done so well. In 1990, Côte d’Ivoire could no longer be governed as it had been 30 years earlier in 1960, the young did not want it, the people were tired of it, and so was international opinion. Houphouët-Boigny accepted multi-partyism and the country’s first democratic presidential elections would be held between two candidates: Felix Houphouët-Boigny and Laurent Coudou Gbagbo. The country was entering a new era.
Everything became possible after the death of the founding father in 1993. Henri Konan Bédié succeeded him to the task and organized elections in 1995, but was boycotted by serious opponents, except for the candidate who accompanied him, Francis Wodié. This election introduced the concept of Ivorianism, sowing the seeds of division within the political class and Ivorian society. The worm was in the fruit, and the army seized power through a coup on Christmas Day 1999. The mutinous general Robert Guéï wanted to sweep the house and settle there.
The elections he organized excluded certain candidates and he found himself seeking the votes of the electorate together with Laurent K. Gbagbo, who won the elections of 2000. The country, which had been deteriorating since the end of the Houphouët era, would experience a failed coup. The “state regime” of 2002 led to a rebellion and divided the country in two. It would take ten years for the last consultations to discuss again the elections organized under UN supervision, which would end in protests and violence with the announcement of competing results, with two presidents vying for power. The electoral dispute ended with the resolution of the crisis by force, with the arrest of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who was sent to stand trial at the International Criminal Court, and who would return to Côte d’Ivoire innocently in December 2020.
The winner of the crisis, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, will organize elections in 2015 and be re-elected. He wanted to hand over in 2020, but both possible successive dolphins died of illness. He then amended the constitution (eliminating two obstacles regarding his age and number of terms) to run for a third term. Will he run in 2025? Who will be his opponent?
Alassane Dramane Ouattara (ADO)
He is the current president, serving three consecutive terms. After the successful hosting and victory of the Africa Cup of Nations, Cote d’Ivoire seems to be the center of economic prosperity and has reached the top of the African continent. It is not the least happy country compared to its neighbors. But shouldn’t the president retire with a good impression of CAN, running for a fourth term? There are several arguments in favor of this view. He is already 82 years old. He is 10 months older than the US President Joe Biden, who just withdrew from the presidential election in favor of the Vice President Kamala Harris of the most powerful democracy. Even if he seems to be in good health, Adu should leave with other potential candidates of his generation Laurent Gbagbo and his ex-wife Simone Echiwit.
Laurent Koudou Gbagbo
He returns from The Hague white as snow, having been acquitted by the International Criminal Court. This purity and the unjust prison pass and the conditions of his arrest are before the voters. But he is not registered on the electoral roll, cannot vote and be elected. This is an obstacle that only his long-time rival and brotherly enemy can remove. How can this 79-year-old former prisoner, a year older than Donald Trump, old billionaire, former president of the United States, xenophobic, justly condemned by his homeland, who dreams of returning to power, qualify, and by what methods. Will he put the country in crisis and run for president again, with the support of his former prime minister, former rebel leader, whom he appointed governor-general, Guillaume Soro? Has his long meditation in The Hague shown him this path?
Simone Eichwert
The former first lady, president of the Movement for a Capable Generation (MGC), suffered a lot. She lost power and everything that came with it, and as a reward, she lost her home and her husband, who used an evil tongue to say that she had an advantage over him. Today, their paths are separate, each has their own stance and looks in different directions. At 75, she also belongs to the older generation and can play the role of a wise grandmother or a passionate person. Simone is not eligible either.
Guillaume Kigbafoury Soro
They are 4 months younger than Charles Blé Goudé, 52 years old, and together with Tidjane Thiam, 10 years older, form a younger generation. The head of the GPS (Generations and Peoples’ Solidarity) is also not eligible. He is the one who most appreciated the call made by former President Laurent Gbagbo on July 14, 2024, for the opposition to rally to return to power during the presidential elections scheduled for October 2025. He said he was ready to open discussions with Laurent Gbagbo’s PPA. CI (African People’s Party-Côte d’Ivoire) to collaborate in order to register them on the electoral list. Guillaume Soro has not come close to reversing the alliance, will this time he help Laurent Gbagbo to defeat Alassane Ouattara, or will he himself need help to achieve this goal?
Tidjani Thiam
On paper, he looks like the dream successor of Alassane Dramane Ouattara. He is the product of Pan-Africanism, with a Senegalese father and a Baoulé Ivorian mother. Polytechnic, banker, with a short domestic career, with an international aura (stretching from the UK, Switzerland, France, the US to Asia, etc.). No one would dispute that this gentleman has the best assets to continue and develop what the ADO has done, if not in the political sphere. But the members of the right-wing police will not want this heir, who, in addition to claiming political Houphouëtism, is also the bloodline heir of the founding father, his great-uncle (his mother is the niece of President Felix Houphouët-Boigny). He worked with the late President Henri Konan Bédié, but stayed abroad during the crisis of the 2000s, which could give him the strength to heal his wounds.
In August 2024, the country overheated after Gbagbo’s call and the birth of an opposition group, which demanded that the Electoral Commission extend the recruitment of young people until July 2025, instead of stopping it in October 2024, and fundamentally reform the electoral system. The government responded by trying two members of Guillaume Soro’s party, one for defamation and the other for signing the opposition manifesto in the name of a coalition of parties, claiming to be a member of a dissolved party.
Will wisdom prevail in this electoral battle? Everyone will seek revenge at all costs, and this new competition even risks plunging the country into the horrors it has experienced and which have lastingly destabilized West Africa. The purpose of politics is to serve the people, not the egos of leaders.
Sanaa Gaye
Lefaso.com
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