CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by K.K. Man Jusu, Côte d'Ivoire, August 1999
THEME = POLITICS
Alassane Ouattara is a former prime minister and a former
director-general of the IMF.
He is standing for the presidential elections for the year 2000,
in spite of what Côte d'Ivoire's Electoral Code states.
He is challenging both the country's institutions and the ruling PDCI- RDA
"Is Alassane able to stand in the elections or not? Is he a citizen of Côte d'Ivoire or of Burkina Faso?". These are the kind of questions people have been asking about Alassane since 1 August 1999, replacing a previous query (since 1994) concerning Alassane: "Is he coming or not?"
After the death of the "Old Man" (the popular name for Houphouet-Boigny, Côte d'Ivoire's first President who died in 1993), and after the foundation of the Rally of Republicans (RDR), which came about from a split in the ranks of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire-African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA), in power since Independence, the former Prime Minister, Alassane Dramane Ouattara (or "Ado, as his fans like to call him), left the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Since then, people were always asking: "Is he coming home or not?" But Ado didn't want to lose his job at the IMF only to come a cropper in Côte d'Ivoire, reasoning that the electoral law preventing him from offering himself as a candidate in the elections, was "unjust and unfair". He said he'd come if the law were to be changed and he counted on his supporters to continue the fight in order to change the law. Hence the boycott resulting in deaths during the 1995 elections. But the law remained the same and so Ado refused to come.
The 1998 Electoral Code, placed on the statute book by the majority PDCI-RDA parliament, states that "candidates for the presidential elections must be citizens of Côte d'Ivoire, with both parents Ivoiriens by birth". Rumours are afoot that Ado is not Ivoirien born. People say his father came from Burkina Faso. "Not so", says Ouattara, who explains that his father came from Kono, an Ivoirien town in the north-east. If at one time his father happened to be in Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), it was because of the artificiality of the frontiers at that time with tribal affiliation straddling the frontier between the two countries, and the frontier being altered at a later stage. His father happened to be a chief in what was then Upper Volta. As for his mother, she came originally from Gbéléban, a village situated in the north-west of Côte d'Ivoire. Brandishing his parents' identity cards, Ado declares: "All my documents as regards nationality, parentage, and residence are in order, thus enabling me to stand for the presidency".
Why, then, was there an election boycott in 1995 and why did Alassane describe as "unjust and iniquitous" the law which prevented him from standing for the presidency? Readers will recall that when Alassane was Houphouet-Boigny's prime minister, politicians said he didn't fulfil all the conditions necessary to be a prime minister of Côte d'Ivoire. When he was still young, he had left with his father for Upper Volta, and attended both primary and secondary schools in that country. While he was still there, he obtained a study scholarship for the USA. In the USA, Alassane Ouattara was the president of the Volta Students Movement, and worked in international communities as a representative of Upper Volta. It was only in 1982, because of problems with the military authorities in Upper Volta, that he returned to Côte d'Ivoire. President Houphouet-Boigny received him with open arms and appointed him his prime minister.
Because of the high esteem in which President Houphouet-Boigny, the "father of the nation", was held at that time, Ivoiriens closed their eyes to this "abnormality". The Opposition were the only ones who opposed Alassane as prime minister, by condemning this "intrusion of a stranger into the political life of the Ivoirien people". There was, however, an open dispute between Henri Bédié, then president of the National Assembly and Houphouet-Boigny's vice-president, and Ado. This occurred when Ado said he was going to stand in the 1995 presidential elections.
And now, what are they saying? Is Ouattara, Ivoirien or Burkinabé? The answer lies with the Constitutional Council who must rule on the eligibility of each candidate. But people are afraid the open hostility between supporters of Alassane and those of Bedié, will spell trouble in 2000. It's the third occasion that tension has been in the air to such an extent. The two previous occasions were following Houphouet-Boigny's death (the so-called "war of the presidential succession" in 1993), and the election boycott in 1995. As always, it's an on- going war of succession with tribalism, regionalism and religion in the background.
There's a theory going the rounds that in order to avoid any accusation of tribalism when it comes to determining occupancy of the presidential palace, the next president must come from a different tribe. Well, Houphouet-Boigny was a Baoulé, and so is the present president, Henri Bedié. The Opposition coalition, the Ivoirien Popular Front- Rally of Republicans (FPI-RDR) is challenging the PDCI considered to be the party of the Baoulé. So, to "take up arms" against the PDCI is to fight against the Baoulé's stranglehold on Côte d'Ivoire's political life.
The RDR has two other aims apart from combatting the Baoulé supremacy. The first is to end the domination of the Christians, in favour of the Muslims who say they are the majority religion in Côte d'Ivoire. Secondly, the RDR wants the north (which considers itself unjustly treated as regards development) to challenge the south which is considered to be receiving preferential "treatment". President Bedié has called on the nation to be truly "Ivoirien" in every sense of the word especially when faced with the increasing trend towards globalisation. He calls his grand design, the "Ivoirien Way of Life".
First suggested in 1995, the Ivoirien "Way of Life" ideology englobes three types of culture: the culture of the 60 Ivoirien ethnic groups; the culture of foreigners living in Côte d'Ivoire (30% of the population are reckoned to be foreigners); modern culture. Put together the positive aspects of these three cultures, and voilà, you have the Ivoirien "Way of Life".
Strange to say, northeners maintain: "This ideology is directed against us". Clearly, there's some kind of intellectual dishonesty in this statement. However, it must be remembered that the "Way of Life" ideology saw the light of day at the same time as the 1995 Electoral Code which distinguished between Ivoiriens by birth and Ivoiriens because of circumstances. It seems that in the north there is a fairly high percentage of Ivoiriens having foreign parentage (mainly because of immigration from Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso). The same thing applies to the presence of Ivoiriens with foreign parentage in the Muslim community. All those opposed to Bedié's ideology are considered to be "foreigners" who want take over Côte d'Ivoire through political, economic and cultural means.
Instead of uniting the nation as originally intended, Bedié's concept is driving people apart. To such an extent that within PDCI-RDA ranks, party supporters are calling for a change in name for the "Way of Life". Paul Yao Akoto, Minister for Presidential Affairs has suggested, the "Ivoirien Identity" i.e. what does being a citizen of Côte d'Ivoire really consist in. A less expressive term, perhaps, but certainly less ambiguous.
END
CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
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