The eruption of a virtual civil war in the Ivory Coast is really a long-delayed effect of the character of political rule which this country has experienced since its independence in 1960, in particular the long period of rule (1960-1993) under former President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. The President, like the presidents of many other former French colonial territories in Africa, was the beneficiary of an extremely cosy relationship between France and his country, in which French investments remained protected and secure, as the regime became increasingly autocratic and established a one-party dominant system with little space for dynamic opposition.
In that context, it is not surprising that the dominant political players in the Ivory Coast have remained the same over many years, either intermittently fighting the regime by various methods or supporting it until they became dispensable. So sitting President, Laurent Gbagbo has been struggling against Houphouët-Boigny and his party since the early 1980s, having eventually been forced into exile till he returned to the country as Houphouët’s health began to fail, still contesting and losing the presidency in 1990. Having eventually been elected some years after the death of the President, he has now behaved exactly like Houphouët-Boigny in attempting to monopolise power in the face of popular rejection.
The candidate whom the United Nations now recognizes as the duly elected president, Alassane Ouattara, in fact functioned as prime minister of the country during Houphouët’s last days from 1990 to 1993. Essentially a technocrat with a doctorate in economics after extensive training in the United States, he was well recognized in monetary and banking circles in West Africa, and as a senior IMF official, the institution to which he returned after losing a battle within Houphouët’s party for the succession. He has the image of a professional public servant-turned politician, and it is really no surprise that he has quickly gathered the support of the main international institution, the UN, in his current battle, once it became reasonably clear that Gbabgo had manipulated the election result.
As has been observed in the media, the battle for the presidency between the two men, reflects in part the ethnic and geographical division of the country. Houphouët’s party and its strength were originally based in the north of the country, with his opponents gathering their support from the south which included the capital, Abdijan. In that context it is not surprising that Houophouët, rolling in cocoa and coffee wealth in the 1980s, sought to change the balance by making the city of Yamoussoukro in the north, the major administrative centre of the state, a centre of support which Ouattara, his sometime protégé, has based his political action on.
In earlier periods of the independence of the French ex-colonies in Africa, the French government, whether of the left or the right, would not have hesitated to put pressure on a Gbabgo, in order to inhibit any long-term instability in what, apart from Senegal, was probably their favourite state. With a powerful intelligence network, and a series of military bases in those states, it was for years a simple matter to have France’s will prevail with little protest. Stability in the Ivory Coast was of critical importance, the country with its wealth from cocoa and coffee production being often referred to as France’s “jewel in the crown.” But in recent years, pressure from within France itself, with various French governments (even that of the Socialist Mitterand) being accused of gaining personal benefits from the protected governments in Africa, some domestic pressures had been placed on French interventions. France’s response in recent years has been a degree of withdrawal of its military presence on the continent, and a self-ordained determination to limit such peremptory action.
The peak of the uprising against Gbagbo in the face of electoral fraud, coming simultaneously with the Libyan uprising against Gaddafi, and then the relatively swift UN decision to support Ouattara, seems to have caught the French a little flat-footed. France, like Italy and Britain have spent the last decade or so, trying to bring Gaddafi to international normalcy and acceptability, conscious as they have been of the prospects for substantial investment in the oil industry in Libya, as well as the position of Libya as an avid buyer of military equipment. President Sarkozy too, had found himself somewhat blindsided by a policy towards the uprising in another ex-French colony, Tunisia, which put him on the wrong side of history. And in that context he has signalled his determination, as in Libya, that Gbabgo should go. And this has been accompanied by the movement of French military aircraft to Abidjan airport.
In a sense, apart from the French interest, any intervention in the Ivory Coast, seeming to be just in time to consolidate the Ouattara forces’ push into Abidjan, would be welcomed by the NATO allies. For them, there are too many irons, and potential irons, in the fire – particularly the Middle Eastern fire – which must at this time have predominance in their action and their thinking. And it is probably the case that in many countries on the African continent, as in the Middle East, there is widespread popular annoyance at the determination of governments representing particular ethnic groups to extend themselves for years and years by any means possible. In that context, as the course of things goes on in the Ivory Coast, Western governments will be watching not only that country closely, but also the electoral proceedings (now postponed for a second time) in the real ace in West Africa, Nigeria.
