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

expansion in the Gulf of Guinea designed to guarantee at least 25 per cent
of their oil supply in the near future. As for the European Union, in which
France has fully integrated itself since the Single European Act, in addition
to a number of special interests (AIGLON and REINART in cotton, the
Belgian group SIPEF for palm oil, DOLE for bananas, PANWELL-GMG for
rubber, etc), its interest in Côte d’Ivoire is increasing as the crisis of
immigration intensifies. The EU believes that if Côte d’Ivoire proves itself
capable of welcoming migratory fluxes to which it has closed its doors, the
country would hold a solution to African immigration crisis. Under current
conditions, this objective can only be reached if Côte d’Ivoire regains
peace and stays open for business.
FORMAL DEMOCRACY AND THE IDIOSYNCRASIES OF THE IVORIAN
SITUATION
On 30 April 1990, the freedom of participation in lawful political activity
was granted to groups and classes hostile to the one-party system.
Meanwhile, Bédié had hauled himself up to power thanks to the death of
Houphouët-Boigny, the benefit of the application of Article 11 of the
constitution of 3 November 1960 and the help of Paris, only to find himself
faced with a fierce competitor in Alassane Ouattara, the former prime
minister of Houphouët-Boigny. As he wasn’t certain of winning a free
electoral confrontation against Ouattara, he decided instead to oust him.
For this he had not only to erase the memory of profiteering which had
stuck to him like a leech since his journey to the head of the Ministry of
Finance, but also and above all to award a legal dressing to the stripping of
eligibility he imposed on those he knew to oppose him. So on 13 December
1994, as the executive authority, Bédié passed, through a national
assembly at his complete devotion, an electoral law which under the
pretext of reserving the right to vote for nationals only reserved eligibility
to the presidency of the republic to people of Ivorian origin. A few months
later, this restrictive, reactionary system – which immediately excluded
Ouattara and a section of the ruling class from universal suffrage –
received the name ‘Ivorité’.
In resorting to such a problematic political distraction, Bédié
simultaneously demonstrated his incapacity to achieve the conditions
necessary for the collective domination of the ruling Ivorian classes. For
this domination depended on the rotation of the ruling classes at the head
of the state which was as essential for the concealment of the country’s
widespread poverty as it was for allowing the continued pursuit of empty
policies and the country’s economic pillage. This explains his overthrow
and the indifference in which he made himself part of France yet linked to
Côte d’Ivoire by a defence treaty with a secret clause requiring him to
save the regime in the case of internal subversion. The same causes
produce the same effects: Bédié’s conversion to ‘Ivorité’ and refusal under
this same principle to organise open elections to all who condemn General
Guei and defend both his fall and the conditions in which it occurred. In
offering a constitutional legitimacy to ‘Ivorité’,[3] Guei destroyed the
hope of a possible reconciliation of the ruling classes and in so doing a
return to the conditions of order indispensable to the pursuit of neoliberal
policies. Consequently, he condemned himself and promoted Gbagbo, the
only ‘true Ivorian’ still in the race.
On 26 October 2000, Gbagbo was ‘finally recognised as the winner’ by the
Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court after protestors supported
by a military and police squadron stormed the palace, forcing General Guei
to flee. On 24 October, Gbagbo proclaimed himself head of state of Côte
d’Ivoire, had declared the dissolution of the transition government (…)
asked all militants to rise up to obstruct the imposter (…) and that (…)
Ivorian patriots take to the street until the law is recognised and until Guei