Opposition party in Cote d'Ivoire split over participation in October's election

-
Former Ivory Coast prime minister Pascal Affi N'Guessan, leader of Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo's party, speaks during an interview with Reuters at his residence in Abidjan August 14, 2015.
REUTERS/LUC GNAGO
Reuters wrote about Cote d'Ivoire's upcoming election again today.  As expected, President Ouattara's main opposition candidate is Pascal Affi N'Guessan of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), the party of Laurent Gbagbo, which didn't hold an election in 2005 because of the civil war over disenfranchising the north by banning candidates such as Ouattara. In 2010 when the election was finally held, most agree that the FPI attempted to steal the election won by Ouattara (more on that below).

Since Ouattara took the presidency in 2011 (after a second civil war caused by Gbagbo and the FPI refusing to recognize Ouattara's electoral victory), the FPI has been boycotting elections, which has only resulted in Ouattara and his party dominating the legislature. Oattara's leadership is going well for the country -- GDP has been growing at 9% annually for three years -- so the FPI's boycott seems to be hurting no-one but themselves.

N'Guessan has come to the same conclusion. "We cannot remain eternally absent from political competition or we risk disappearing," the 62-year-old N'Guessan told Reuters. "If a party doesn't participate in elections, it has no reason to exist," he told Reuters.

But some of his compatriots in the FPI don't agree. A faction led by former foreign minister Aboudramane Sangare are part of the National Coalition for Change (CNC) that is threatening to boycott the election. A spokesman for this faction that sees N'Guessan as Ouattara's strawman describes Ouattara's election in 2010 as a "coup d'etat."

He's right, there was a coup d'etat in 2010. But Encyclopedia Brittanica (and most international observers) would disagree with the FPI about who launched that (auto)coup:

... on Dec. 2, 2010, the country’s electoral commission declared that Ouattara won the election with 54 percent of the vote, but the Constitutional Council quickly contested the results because they were not released in accordance with the established deadline. The next day the Constitutional Council, citing evidence of numerous irregularities, discounted a portion of the results. It then declared Gbagbo to be the winner, with 51 percent of the vote. Most of the international community, including the UN, maintained that Ouattara was the rightful winner. Nevertheless, Gbagbo, who had the support of the country’s military and top levels of government, was sworn in for another term as president ...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Burkina Faso army orders coup leaders back to barracks; dueling focal points in battle of the sexes

-
Image
Source: AFP In my first post on last week's military coup in Burkina Faso, I predicted that "It is unlikely that the military will remain in power for long." However, I'll be the first to admit I had no idea the coup would end the way it seems to be ending. Quick background: President Compaore's 27-year rule ended on Halloween last year in response to street protests when he and his ruling party, the CDP, tried to remove the term-limits so Compaore could run for another term as president. An interim government planned for elections in October 2015, but a new electoral code banned the CDP and its allies from running. The CDP appealed to the ECOWAS Court, and that Court said the ban violated the former ruling party's human rights, but the Burkina Faso Constitutional Court ignored that ruling and enforced the electoral code, banning the CDP. Meanwhile, a commission of the interim government recommended disbanding Compaore's elite presidential gua
Read more

Presidential Term Limits and Regime Type

-
Image
After my post on president age , it struck me that in just 2 years, three of the 15 presidents ran for a 3rd or 4th term. That seems like a lot, since presidential term limits (usually 2) are one of the continent's democratic successes.  Presidential term limits are particularly important in "presidential regimes" in which the president is both head of state and head of government. In semi-presidential regimes , where the prime minister is head of government and answers to both the president and the legislature, presidential term limits might play a different role. The president is already constrained to a greater degree by the legislature, and prime ministers generally don't have term limits, so term limits on the presidency might not be as high-stakes.  So I thought it would be interesting to look at the status of term limits in presidential and semi-presidential ECOWAS countries separately. (There are currently no parliamentary regimes in the region.) Shugart and
Read more

Terrorist attack in Burkina Faso (UPDATED)

-
Image
Soldiers stand guard in front of the Splendid Hotel after an attack on the hotel and a restaurant in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, January 18, 2016. REUTERS/JOE PENNEY President Kobara is off to a tough start. Twenty-nine civilians from seven countries were killed in a violent terrorist attack in the nation's capital. "Officials have not yet been able to determine whether al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al Mourabitoun, groups that claimed responsibility for both attacks, used a local jihadist cell or sent fighters from northern Mali." AQIM is part of Al Queda and was launched in Algeria, spread to Mali where it took over half the country until the French dropped some bombs, after which it expanded into Tunisia and Morocco. I believe this would be AQIM's first attack in Burkina Faso. UPDATE: The Monkey Cage has a nice extended post about what the attack means for Burkina Faso - consequences, challenges, etc. Check it out. 
Read more