IRIN Focus on the latest electoral crisis

The smouldering remains of burnt tyres and barricades made of crates, bits of metal and, on one road, freshly cut trees, were a few of the visible signs on Monday of fresh political upheavals in Cote d’Ivoire. The latest crisis, which further threatens the stability and cohesion of an already fractured society, is pegged to the Supreme Court’s decision to disqualify ex-Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara from the 10 December election. Ouattara’s candidature had been approved by the electoral commission, but the court ruled that he had not provided admissible evidence that he was an Ivorian national. The decision is “illegal and completely arbitrary”, Henriette Diabate, secretary-general of the party Ouattara chairs, the Rassemblement des Republicains (RDR), said on Radio France Internationale (RFI) on Friday. “We have been patient,” she said. “We have wanted to comply with the rules in view of what is happening in our country. We cannot accept such a decision and we affirm that the party’s chairman cannot be excluded from his country’s political process.” The RDR reacted to the decision by withdrawing from the elections and calling a demonstration for Monday 4 December. The government said at the weekend that the demonstration was illegal and, on Sunday, Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou announced a ban on all anti-election protests from 5 to 11 December. Following discussions on Sunday with the government, the RDR agreed to call off the march and replace it with a public meeting at the Houphouet Boigny Stadium in Le Plateau, Abidjan’s central administrative district. However, that meeting did not get off the ground, according to media sources. AFP said the sound system failed and some RDR supporters insisted on demonstrating. Towards 13:00 GMT RDR leaders and supporters left the stadium, AFP reported. Thousands protest against Ouattara’s exclusion Up to mid-afternoon, there were still thousands of protesters on the main road near the stadium. Some vowed to continue the protest on Tuesday and until they achieved their goal. “We want the presidency, we don’t want just the parliamentary seat,” one youth told IRIN, while others nodded emphatically. “They are saying we are Mossi (Burkinabes), well this is Ouagadougou,” another youth said in an apparent reference to claims by Ouattara’s detractors that he is Burkinabe and that his supporters are not true Ivorians. Later in the afternoon, thousands of RDR supporters could be seen walking the 15-km stretch from Plateau to the outlying neighbourhood of Abobo, where they were occasionally dispersed by bursts of teargas from patrolling gendarmes. Some had sticks, IRIN saw three traditional hunters (‘dozos’) with guns, but many of the marchers, who included men and women of all ages, were unarmed. At least three people were reported to have been killed. In the middle-income neighourhood of Cocody, anti-RDR groups armed with machetes and sticks lined some streets and massed in the compounds of apartment buildings near the state television station. A source later told IRIN that RDR protesters had been cleared from the area. At one point IRIN saw two youths stripped naked surrounded by gendarmes. At least one of the youths was wounded on the back and above his ear. At a nearby intersection lay the inanimate body of a naked boy, who seemed to be in his mid-teens. There was blood on the side of his head. There were men armed with machetes and sticks near the body, while about 12 heavily armed gendarmes stood less than 100 metres away. In the compound of an appartment block in the same neighbourhood, two youths struggled to escape from a cudgel-wielding mob. IRIN members of staff who walked towards the scene were intercepted by young men who surrounded and threatened them and demanded that they show their identity cards. One member of the mob later sought to explain why the group was edgy: “We don’t know who is who,” he said. “They (RDR protesters) have been causing problems here.” International community expresses dismay The international community has deplored Ouattara’s exclusion from the parliamentary race. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on 1 December that he was “dismayed” by the Ivorian Supreme Court’s decision. A spokesman for the Secretary-General said Annan felt only an election with the broadest possible participation would serve the cause of democracy and stability in Côte d’Ivoire. The spokesman said the United Nations was reassessing its involvement in the observation of the elections. The European Union (EU) was reported to have suspended at least part of its aid to Cote d’Ivoire. National unity under serious threat? There is increasing evidence that the latest crisis transcends the issue of Ouattara’s participation in the parliamentary election and could even threaten Cote d’Ivoire’s unity. A group of associations from northern Cote d’Ivoire, where the RDR draws much of its support, warned the government at the weekend to resolve the situation or order the “repatriation” of southerners from 13 districts of the north, including Ouattara’s home area, Kong. Interior Minister Emile Boga Doudou said on radio that he had been informed that state representatives in Kong had been asked to leave. He said he immediately contacted “Gaoussou Ouattara, who is the elder brother of Alassane Ouattara, to inform him of my concern” and that he had received assurances from the elder Ouattara, who is the outgoing parliamentarian for Kong, “that the administration would not be endangered”. In its edition of Monday 4 December, ‘Le Patriote’, a pro-RDR newspaper, showed a map of Cote d’Ivoire with the north separated from the south on its front page, with the caption “Cote d’Ivoire on the brink of secession”. Asked whether there was a real danger of this, RDR Secretary-General Diabate said on BBC: “No, I think the secessionist threat can be serious if we are not careful. The fundamental problems have to be eradicated.” North feels it is being punished, RDR official says Basically, she said, northerners want people to understand that Cote d’Ivoire “is one and indivisable and that there cannot be two measures, one for people from the north and one for people from the south. I myself am from the south and I know how people talk about northerners in my milieu, in my family.” She said northerners saw Ouattara as a symbol. “He is being punished for reasons which are not necessarily the fact that he is from the north but, through Ouattara, an entire region, an entire people, are being punished.” In a reference to the post-election violence in which 171 persons are said to have died, she added: “During the events that we experienced here, people from the north were selectively killed in cold blood and are considered foreigners, so Alassane is just a symbol of the struggle.” The violence occurred after ex-military leader General Robert Guei declared himself the winner of the 22 October presidential election, from which the Supreme Court also disqualified Ouattara, along with other major politicians. Some people died when pro-Guei forces fired on demonstrators calling for the election result to be respected. The protests forced Guei to give up power on 25 October, paving the way for the winner of the poll, Laurent Gbagbo, to be sworn in as president. However, the RDR called for a rerun of the presidential election and demonstrated to press its demand. This sparked clashes between supporters and opponents of the RDR. Gendarmes were accused of siding with the anti-RDR group: according to witnesses, northerners were taken from their homes, beaten and taken to police stations. Heaps of bodies were later found.