LAGOS, Nigeria — The choice of Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara to run for a fourth time period dangers a return to a previous period of “outdated guard dictator rule,” an analyst warned on Wednesday.
Ibrahim Anoba, an Africa affairs analyst on the Atlas Community, was talking a day after Ouattara ended months of hypothesis about his contested candidacy with an announcement that’s more likely to result in a near-guaranteed extension of a presidency that began in 2010.
Whereas Ouattara, 83, stated his resolution to run was knowledgeable by the “unprecedented safety, financial, and financial challenges” the nation faces, his announcement comes after the disqualification of most of his distinguished rivals, together with former Credit score Suisse chief government Tidjane Thiam.
After altering the structure in 2016 to take away presidential time period limits, Ouattara is the newest chief in West and Central Africa to aim to remain in energy with little or no problem from a weakened opposition.
Togo’s Faure Gnassingbé swapped the presidential system with a parliamentary system and launched a brand new omnipotent function, whereas in Cameroon Paul Biya is eyeing an eighth time period after being in energy since 1982, almost half his lifetime. Central African Republic’s Faustin Touadera is in search of a 3rd time period amid a constitutional controversy.
With Ivory Coast thought-about a regional powerhouse, analysts say a weakened opposition and the constitutional change that stored Ouattara in energy after abolishing preliminary time period limits may lead the nation to an period of one-man rule, particularly in a area the place democracy is more and more being challenged.
Opposition protests towards Ouattara have been blocked, and a number of other protesters have been arrested and accused of disturbing public order.
“We is likely to be sliding again to that period of outdated males, outdated guard dictator rule in West Africa as a result of (of) the angle of the navy and equally the civilian rulers,” stated Anoba. “And the announcement of Ouattarra is a mirrored image of that actuality.”
Opposition politicians are actually rallying towards Ouattara, which might feed right into a rising wave of discontent amongst residents battling declining economies and safety challenges.
“It’s a repetition of the identical drawback that we’ve got seen result in the identical penalties,” stated Anoba.
West and Central Africa has recorded 8 coups since 2020, with the navy juntas typically pointing to the dearth of honest democratic processes as one in every of their causes for deposing elected governments.
A spate of energy grabs by navy powers has reconfigured the area’s geopolitical strains and cut up the decades-old regional bloc generally known as ECOWAS.
Periodic elections have been utilized by others to keep up democratic credentials, however analysts say the development of constitutional modifications and assaults on opposition have been no totally different from the navy powers which have all prolonged their keep in energy.
“What we’re having for the time being throughout West and Central Africa is status-quo elections,” stated Beverly Ochieng, a senior analyst at Management Dangers. “They find yourself reinforcing the authority and government energy of the incumbent in a approach the opposition events aren’t capable of problem it.”
Ochieng added: “There may be additionally nearly like an equal within the sense that folks wish to delay their keep in energy and are keen to make use of constitutional and transitional means to realize.”
Ivory Coast has maintained its repute as one in every of Africa’s most secure democracies, particularly after its ruinous civil wars. It has established itself as a serious African financial energy, principally because of the insurance policies of Ouattara’s presidency.
Nevertheless, beneath the veneer of stability is a agency grip on authorities establishments that makes it not possible for the opposition to problem the ruling social gathering, analysts say.
Ivory Coast has continuously skilled electoral violence, which has killed a number of individuals, even pushing it shut to a different civil conflict in 2011 when then-leader Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede defeat after shedding the election, and a few 3,000 individuals have been killed within the violence that adopted.
