Espoir pour d’Ivoire: Regional and Senatorial elections in the Ivory Coast

Ouattara, left and Gbagbo, right: the two main political personalities of Ivory Coast (Wikimedia Commons)

As Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara mulls running for a fourth term, voters have given his Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) a boost in regional elections. His party won control of 25 out of 31 regions, with four falling to an opposition alliance between the Democratic Party and African People’s Party. Top RHDP officials such as Prime Minister Patrick Achi won victories in their regions, while Aube Nouvelle, an independent observer group, reported only isolated irregularities in a race that determines Senate control. Though one district in the capital Abidjan saw a spat between supporters of the government and opposition, these are a far cry from the 85 killed following Ouattara’s most recent re-election victory in 2020. 

While these elections may not fundamentally shift the Ivorian political landscape, they could herald a movement towards stability, marking the first major polls since former President Laurent Gbagbo’s 2021 return from exile. Gbagbo, who refused to concede following the 2010 elections, had presided over two brutal civil wars before Ouattara’s ascension to power. While he has been acquitted of crimes against humanity in the International Criminal Court, he is still stripped of his electoral rights due to pending charges that he looted the country’s central bank during the end of his reign. 

Human rights advocacy groups like Amnesty International have raised concerns over the arrests of Gbagbo’s supporters in the African People’s Party earlier this year for raising the Russian flag in opposition to the pro-Western Ouattara government, which has supported armed intervention against the pro-Russian junta in Niger. According to Gbagbo, these arrests are intended to “discourage activists from demonstrating.” Supporters of the government insist that the arrests are merely to keep the peace while criminal investigations against Gbagbo and his allies continue, and that “[Ivorians] are free to express [them]selves but not to defame.” 

In any event, Ouattara appears prepared to control the Senate that he designed five years ago to bolster his power. With each of the 33 regional councils electing two senators and Ouattara appointing one per region, the RHDP will likely control between 80 and 90 of the 99 seats in the upper house. While such dominance may not be healthy for a multiparty democracy, the presence of at least eight opposition senators could be a check on the long reign of a president who previously promised not to run—before nonetheless running again.