April 2011 - Centre for Civil Society - University of KwaZulu-Natal

Massan d’Almeida First Published in Pambazuka 4 March 2010
Côte d’Ivoire has been in a political impasse since the declaration of
contested results of a second round of presidential elections held in
November 2010. Since both candidates claimed victory and have been
sworn in, the country has two presidents and two governments. In order to
understand the impact of this situation on women and women’s rights
organisations, AWID (Association for Women’s Rights in Development)
spoke with two women’s rights defenders, Mata Coulibaly, president of SOS
EXCLUSION and Honorine Sadia Vehi Toure, president of Génération
femmes du troisième millénaire (GFM3), as well as with an Ivorian
politician who prefers to remain anonymous and to whom we have given
the pseudonym of Sophie.
On 28 November 2010, Côte d’Ivoire held a second round of presidential
elections, following a first round which took place in October 2010 after
several postponements. Fourteen[1] candidates participated in the first
round, and Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo, the two candidates
who garnered the most votes, made it to the second round of the polls.
Gbagbo is the incumbent president. After the elections, the Independent
Electoral Commission declared Ouattara the winner, but these results were
invalidated by the Ivorian Constitutional Court which declared his rival,
Gbagbo, the president-elect of Côte d’Ivoire.
This precipitated a crisis in the country. Gbagbo ‘refused to yield to
international pressure and withdraw from his position’[2] in favour of
Ouattara, who was recognised by the entire international community.
Mata Coulibaly and Honorine Sadia Vehi Toure, the two women’s rights
advocates whom we interviewed, explained how the population is
experiencing this situation: ‘We are going through a crisis and this is very
difficult. There is tension in the country. Our days are filled with
uncertainty because at any moment, a strike can be called,’ said
Coulibaly. Toure added: ‘This is a real crisis and we are under tremendous
stress. We do not know what tomorrow will bring. The social situation is
deteriorating day by day. So it is highly stressful and frustrating.’
The political crisis in Côte d’Ivoire has had major diplomatic, financial,
economic and social repercussions on the population, including on women
and the organisations that defend their rights.
Gbagbo’s refusal to step down has prompted several international
organizations, including the United Nations, the European Union, the
African Union and the Economic Community of West Africa States
(ECOWAS) to take punitive measures against him, his family and close
friends, and the state.
IMPACT OF THE CRISIS ON THE DAILY LIVES OF IVORIANS
The economic cost of Côte d’Ivoire’s conflict between 2002 and 2007 was
severe: the gross domestic product (GDP) per person dropped by 15 per
cent between 2000 and 2006 and poverty consequently increased. Côte
d’Ivoire’s rank in the Human Development Index (HDI) dropped from 154 in
1999 to 166 in 2007,[3] and later rose to 149 in 2010.[4] Before the postelectoral
crisis, the economic outlook for Côte d’Ivoire seemed to have
improved, with a growth of 3.8 per cent in 2009 and optimistic forecasts
for an increase of revenue from cocoa and petroleum exports.
The current crisis aggravates a rather precarious situation and has
accentuated the impoverishment of the population. It has had a serious
impact on the daily lives of Ivorian households, causing prices of essential