Viewpoint Côte d’Ivoire
relating to what needed to be done to create conditions for free and fair elections were wilfully and contemptuously ignored. Te Ivorian Constitutional Council
(CC) is the only body constitutionally empowered to determine the winner in any presidential election and to install the president, with the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) mandated to forward its provisional results to the CC. However, the very people who insist on
the sanctity of the rule of law as funda- mental to all democratic practice, elected illegally to recognise the provisional result announced by the chairperson of the IEC on his own, as the authentic outcome of the presidential election. As provided by the law, Gbagbo con-
tested the fairness of the elections in cer- tain parts of the country, especially the north. Te CC, rightly or wrongly, accepted the majority of the complaints made by Gbagbo, identified other “irregularities,” annulled the votes in some districts, and declared Gbagbo the victor. Te chairperson of the IEC did not take
these alleged irregularities into account and decided that Ouattara had won. Te envoy of the UN secretary general
Ban Ki-moon, his fellow South Korean, SRSG (special representative of the secretary general) Young-jin Choi, also determined that Ouattara had won, but on the basis of fewer votes than those announced by the IEC, having determined that some of the complaints made by Gbagbo were legitimate. In terms of the votes cast for the two
candidates, the IEC, the CC, and the UN SRSG made three different determinations. Gbagbo proposed that to resolve this
matter, which bears on the important is- sue of the will of the Ivorian people, an international commission should be estab- lished to verify the election results, with the important pre-condition that both he and Ouattara should accept the determina- tion of the commission. Tis proposal was rejected by the international community – despite the fact that it would have resolved the electoral dispute without resort to war, and despite the fact that some election ob- servers questioned the fairness of the elec- tions, especially in northern Côte d’Ivoire. For instance, reporting on the elections
in the north, the election observer mission of the AU led by Joseph Kokou Kofigoh, former prime minister of Togo, the inde-
36 | June 2011 New African
pendent civil society Société civile africaine pour la démocratie et l’assistance électorale led by Seynabou Indieguene of Senegal, and the Coordination of African Election Experts (CAEE) from Cameroon, Senegal, Benin, Mali, Morocco, Gabon, and Togo led by Jean-Marie Ongjibangte of Cam- eroon, all sounded the alarm about the elections in the north. For instance, the CAEE said: “After sharing information with other national and international election observers, we hereby state that the second round of the presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire was held amidst major problems in [various northern] regions... “Tese problems were stealing of ballot
boxes, arresting of candidates’ representa- tives, multiple voting, refusal to admit in- ternational observers to witness counting of ballots, and the murder of representatives of candidates. “To that effect, we hereby declare that the second round of voting was not free, fair and transparent in these [northern] localities.”
Ecowas’ report withheld For its part, to this day, the ECOWAS elec- tion observer mission has not issued its re- port on the second round of the presidential election! Why? Clearly the independent international commission proposed by Lau- rent Gbagbo could have been established
and empowered to make a definitive and binding determination about what had hap- pened. Time will tell why this was not done! Further, the UN SRSG took the extraor-
dinary decision to exceed his mandate by declaring who had won the presidential election, contrary to his tasks as detailed by the Security Council. Tis positioned the UN Mission in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) as a partisan [faction] in the Ivorian conflict, rather than a neu- tral peacemaker, equidistant from the bel- ligerent parties. From this point onwards, UNOCI had no choice but actively to work for the installation of Ouattara as president of the country and the removal of Gbagbo. Ultimately, this found expression in the blatant use of its military capacities to open the way for the Forces Nouvelles to defeat the Gbagbo forces and capture Gbagbo, under the shameless pretence that it was acting to protect civilians.
While obliged to respect its peacekeep- ing mandate, which included keeping the belligerent forces apart, UNOCI did noth- ing to stop the advance of the Forces Nouv- elles from the north to the south, including and up to Abidjan.
Nor did UNOCI or the French Licorne forces, as mandated by the United Na- tions, act to protect civilians in the area of Duékoué, where, evidently, the most
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