Face à la percée jihadiste au Burkina Faso, porte ouverte sur les pays du Golfe de Guinée, ceux-ci craignent des attaques sur leurs territoires. Les Etats de la région devraient améliorer le partage du renseignement, renforcer les contrôles aux frontières et renouer un lien de confiance avec la population.
Ahead of presidential election scheduled for Oct 2020, President Ouattara and opposition leaders continued efforts to strengthen positions. Ouattara held rally in capital Yamoussoukro 6-7 Dec gathering some 300,000 supporters. Authorities 2 Dec expelled from country adviser of opposition party Freedom and Democracy for the Republic, Swiss-Cameroonian Nathalie Yamb. Following imprisonment in Sept of VP of main opposition party Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), party leader former President Bédié 1 Dec appointed as VPs retired general and former pro-Ouattara politician Michel Gueu and former minister and ambassador Gilbert Bleu-Lainé. PDCI youth wing leader Bertin Kouadio Konan 6 Dec met former youth minister Charles Blé Goudé in The Hague. Guillaume Soro, former rebel leader and former national assembly speaker and now presidential candidate, planned to return to country 23 Dec after six months abroad, but cancelled his trip after prosecutors same day issued international warrant for his arrest, accusing him of attempting to undermine state authority and misappropriating public funds.
Working to reduce tensions in western Côte d’Ivoire, a flashpoint for ethnic, political and economic rivalries, is imperative to ensure lasting stability and pave the way for national reconciliation.
President Alassane Ouattara’s coalition is walking a dangerous path toward polarisation by repeating mistakes made by previous governments that could ultimately lead Côte d’Ivoire back to crisis.
Despite a marked improvement in economic governance and the holding of legislative elections in good security conditions on 11 December in Côte d’Ivoire, the divisions within the security forces carry a risk of violent confrontation while the victor’s justice targeting only former President Gbagbo’s followers hampers reconciliation.
Forced to fight five months for the power his November election should have given him peacefully, Côte d’Ivoire’s new president now faces multiple urgent challenges to keep the country from fragmenting.
Côte d’Ivoire is on the verge of a new civil war. This tragedy can only be avoided if Africans and the wider international community stand firm behind the democratically elected president, Alassane Ouattara, and he launches an initiative for reconciliation and a transitional government of national unity.
The problem with the army [in Côte d'Ivoire] is structural disorder that can’t be sorted out with the punctual signing of cheques, even if the cheques are big.
This week’s summit of African and European leaders in Abidjan is a chance to find a win-win solution.
Originally published in IRIN
With the UK’s withdrawal from the EU now imminent, a dramatic power shift is changing the balances behind the scenes of the fifth African Union-European Union summit this week in Côte d’Ivoire. It is an opportunity for the EU to forge a new Africa strategy.
Originally published in Berlin Policy Journal
Originally published in Jeune Afrique
Among the three principal politicians who have struggled for power in Côte d’Ivoire since 1995, President Alassane Ouattara, 73, is the only one still in the game and is most likely to win the presidential election on 25 October. The significance of this election is not so much the electoral outcome – which seems to be a foregone conclusion – as much as the political choices that will result from a renewed Ouattara mandate. Without meaningful political, security and judicial reforms, Côte d’Ivoire could face yet another prolonged period of violence.
Originally published in Daily Maverick
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