Ivory Coast: what political future for Laurent Gbagbo?
Laurent Gbagbo, in Abidjan, October 29, 2010. ASSOCIATED PRESS - Rebecca Blackwell
Text by: François Mazet Follow
6 mins
Definitively acquitted by the International Criminal Court on March 31, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo returns to Abidjan this Thursday, June 17, after ten years of absence.
What role does he intend to play?
What implications will his return have on the political scene?
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From our special correspondent in Abidjan
The return to the country of the former president is accompanied by messages on social networks, coming from nostalgics dreaming aloud of a Gbagbo candidacy for the presidential election of 2025. Beyond the legal possibility of running, linked to his penal situation, his relatives are careful not to use the vocabulary of revenge in public, preferring that of reconciliation.
"
Côte d'Ivoire will finally breathe with both lungs, in relation to reconciliation,
" one of them recently told the local press.
Impossible, in fact, to appear as the one who would go against reconciliation for the benefit of his personal ambitions.
► Read also:
Laurent Gbagbo: the key dates of an eventful political and judicial journey
"
Laurent Gbagbo remains popular because of his legitimacy as the historical opponent of Houphouët,
”said sociologist Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné, researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
“
He knows that the posture he will adopt when he returns could strongly condition the success or otherwise of his return to the political game.
But its capacity for mobilization is no longer the same, there is a great unknown as to what its militant base could still be
.
"
A vanished militant base
Indeed, his party, the FPI, is today bloodless. Divided between the so-called "legal" branch, which played the opposition in the ballot box around Pascal Affi N'Guessan without succeeding in mobilizing the troops (9.29% of the votes in the 2015 presidential election), and the "GORs" , “Gbagbo or nothing”, the most loyal apostles who remained on the fringes of the electoral system until the legislative elections of last March, it is difficult for him to mobilize.
Income with the platform Together for Democracy and Sovereignty (EDS), allied almost everywhere with the PDCI, the "GOR" now have 17 deputies out of 255. In the commune of Yopougon, supposed bastion of the former president in Abidjan , the participation was thus only 18%, and the decision won by 400 votes against the RHDP, while Michel Gbagbo was number 2 on the EDS-PDCI list. The "legal" FPI, for its part, has elected only two deputies, and no longer has a parliamentary group.
Beyond his person, and if he wants to rebuild a political apparatus, Laurent Gbagbo's first job will therefore be to reunify his party.
Obviously for those close to him who ensure that "
everyone will come and kneel, and too bad for those who will not be there
".
The balance of power does not please Pascal Affi N'Guessan, first head of government of Laurent Gbagbo, who denied in the press his coming to the airport on Thursday, and prefers to remain silent on the rest of the events.
Concern at RHDP
"
The authorities want Laurent Gbagbo to be discreet,
" political scientist Sylvain N'Guessan tells us.
This is why Alassane Ouattara has not yet formally granted amnesty to his predecessor in the case of the “break-up of the BCEAO”.
He wants "to
obtain his renunciation
" adds Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné.
However, no one imagines Laurent Gbagbo to keep away from political life, as the federations of
victims of the post-electoral crisis
wish
.
"
He will not return to politics for the simple reason that he has never left it
", comments his former advisor and friend Bernard Houdin.
On the RHDP side, we are worried about the “
strategies
” of the one his opponents nicknamed the “
baker
”, for his ability to roll them in flour. “
A doubt settles in the hearts of the populations, Gbagbo does not. has never apologized to the nation we are entitled to doubt his desire for reconciliation the Ivorians,
"tweeted on Monday the account of the presidential party.
The majority, however, cannot afford to appear in the confrontation: "
The president has lost the two" pivots "of his power in a few months
", recalls Sylvain N'Guessan, about the deaths of the heads of government Amadou Gon Coulibaly and Hamed Bakayoko, “
his entourage is reduced
”.
"
Ouattara himself wishes to reconstruct the image of the reconciler, of the peacemaker and to limit the political failure he suffered through this judicial battle at the ICC,
”analyzes Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné.
“
The party in power is at the same time aware of the political reconfiguration that this return can generate.
Failing to oppose or prevent it, he thus wishes to "manage" this return to his advantage, by trying to keep the political initiative.
"
► Read also:
Alassane Ouattara and Laurent Gbagbo: from the fight to the death to forced reunions
Parties, tools at the service of a person
For many Ivorians, it is above all the specter of a new "
battle of the big heads
", as the head of a victims' association says, which resurfaces. At 87 years old, Henri Konan Bédié is still the tutelary figure of the PDCI, arbitrates the factional quarrels within it, appears every day in the party press, receives delegations from all the other political currents of the country. A campaign has even been launched to nominate his name for the Nobel Peace Prize. Alassane Ouattara is 79 years old, Laurent Gbagbo, 76. All are potentially candidates in 2025. The problem, according to our various interlocutors, is that parties are not institutions, but “
tools built for the exclusive service of a person, removal of which would mean a high risk of implosion
», Explains Sylvain N'Guessan.
“
Beyond the rejection of the struggle of egos, and above all of a gerontocratic elite that does not represent the structure of the population at all (77.73% of the population is under 35), there is a reassessment of modalities of political participation
", believes Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné,"
young people realize that they are only used as a brute force, an armed wing of the elders who abandon them once they rise to power.
Young people finally want to take charge and no longer believe in the sincerity of politicians to change their destiny.
The participation of young people in the vote has remained constantly low since 2010. Very few register on the electoral rolls even if they continue to participate in the political debate, especially via social networks
», Concludes the sociologist.
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Ivory Coast
Laurent Gbagbo
Alassane Ouattara