Is Ivory Coast’s red card politics an own goal for democracy after Tidjane Thiam’s ban

Even a stellar worldwide enterprise profession can’t put together you for the arduous realities of politics in Ivory Coast, the place some are questioning the democratic credentials of the West African nation most well-known for being the producer of a lot of the world’s cocoa and a few of its best footballers.

That’s the painful lesson Tidjane Thiam is studying as he waits to see whether or not deal-making within the corridors of energy and widespread strain from the road can rescue his bid to grow to be president of Ivory Coast.

Seemingly relentless progress in direction of the election set for this October got here to a juddering halt on 22 April when a decide dominated that the 62-year-old had misplaced his Ivorian citizenship by taking French nationality many years beforehand and never revoking it till too late to qualify for this 12 months’s vote.

Transferring again to Ivory Coast in 2022 after greater than twenty years in international finance, Thiam had instantly been seen as a possible contender to succeed present head of state Alassane Ouattara who, at 83, is now within the remaining 12 months of his third time period of workplace.

A scion of a standard noble household and an important nephew of the nation’s revered founding President, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, he had impressed as a prime authorities official and minister within the Nineteen Nineties, overseeing infrastructure growth and radical financial reforms.

A navy coup then pushed Thiam to hunt a contemporary profession overseas, which culminated in high-profile stints as chief govt of UK insurance coverage big Prudential after which the banking group Credit score Suisse.

However returning house ultimately, three years in the past, he launched into a gradual advance in direction of the subsequent Ivorian presidential election.

After the loss of life in 2023 of former President Henri Konan Bédié, long-serving chief of the opposition Democratic Social gathering of Ivory Coast (PDCI), Thiam was completely positioned to take his place after which on 17 April this 12 months he was chosen because the get together’s candidate for the upcoming presidential race.

That was no assure of victory, and particularly if – as appears fairly believable Ouattara opts to run for a fourth time period, backed by all of the property and benefits of incumbency and a observe report of 4 successive years of annual financial development above 6%.

Nonetheless, Thiam stood out because the prime different.

As an opponent of the ruling Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), he supplied Ivorian voters the possibility to vary their authorities.

But along with his centrist politics and stable technocratic credentials, his candidacy supplied reassuring competence and the prospect of continuous the spectacular financial progress that Ouattara has piloted since 2011.

Now that potential trajectory is blocked. If the court docket resolution stands – and Ivorian regulation gives no choice of enchantment for this specific situation – Thiam will probably be out of October’s contest.

It’s a race from which previous court docket convictions have already excluded three different distinguished opposition figures – former President Laurent Gbagbo, former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro and a former minister, Charles Blé Goudé – all central actors within the political crises and civil conflicts that brutally paralysed the progress of Ivory Coast between 1999 and 2011.

The prospect now could be that Ouattara or any chosen RHDP successor candidate will strategy the election with out going through any heavyweight political problem.

That may solely deepen Ivorians’ already widespread widespread disillusionment with the nation’s political institution.

That is towards the broader context of a West Africa the place the unconventional anti-politics rhetoric of the troopers who’ve seized energy in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger already finds a sympathetic viewers amongst many disenchanted younger individuals.

That basically issues in societies the place, usually, three-quarters of the inhabitants is beneath 35.

Amidst this disaster for West African democracy, there have been some moments of encouragement.

In Liberia in 2023 and in Senegal and Ghana last year, incumbent governments have been voted out, in free and honest elections whose outcomes have been accepted by all contestants with out argument.

The Senegalese consequence, particularly, owed much to the massive enthusiastic mobilisation of young people.

Many hoped that Ivory Coast may provide an additional constructive instance of democratic selection and the provide of change, and an instance that may be all of the extra influential as a result of the nation is a affluent regional powerhouse.

It’s the financial engine of the CFA franc single forex bloc and moreover the cocoa trade, additionally it is a key hub for enterprise companies and finance and a number one political voice within the regional grouping, the Financial Neighborhood of West African States (Ecowas).

What occurs in Ivory Coast actually issues and is broadly seen, throughout West Africa and certainly, additionally proper throughout francophone Africa extra typically.

Ouattara is among the continent’s most distinguished statesmen, commanding broad respect internationally too.

And but now the run-up to the nation’s essential subsequent presidential election has grow to be ensnared in a return model of the id politics that so soured the bitter disputes and instability of the Nineteen Nineties and 2000s.

Again then, the governments of first Bédié after which Gbagbo used the contentious “ivoirité”, that means “Ivorian-ness” regulation to close Ouattara out of standing for the presidency on the grounds that his household allegedly had overseas origins.

It was solely in 2007 that the federal government scrapped the ban on his candidacy and solely in 2016 – when he was already in workplace – {that a} new structure ultimately ended the requirement that the said dad and mom of presidential candidates be native-born Ivorians.

The toxic mobilisation of id points had been a serious contributing issue to the civil wars, road violence and northern separatist partition that brutally scarred Ivory Coast for greater than a decade, as much as 2011, at a value of 1000’s of lives.

Right this moment the nation feels removed from such large-scale battle.

There isn’t a widespread urge for food for a return to confrontation and politicians are staying nicely away from the incendiary rhetoric of the previous.

However the Thiam saga reveals how id points, even in a extra legalistic kind and on this hopefully extra peaceable period, can nonetheless weigh closely.

Ivory Coast solely permits twin nationality beneath sure restricted circumstances.

So in its 22 April ruling, an Abidjan court docket declared that, beneath the phrases of a little-used post-independence regulation, Thiam had robotically misplaced his Ivorian citizenship virtually 4 many years in the past when he acquired French nationality – after a number of years’ examine in Paris.

Though he formally surrendered that this February, and thus robotically recovered his unique citizenship, this was too late for inclusion on this 12 months’s register of eligible voters or candidates.

In useless, his attorneys had argued that, by his father, Thiam had French nationality from delivery – which, if accepted, would exempt him from the twin nationality ban.

Looking for to focus on the absurdity and inconsistencies of the scenario, he argued that, logically, the nation ought to now hand again its prized 2024 Africa Cup of Nations soccer title as a result of lots of the gamers even have French nationality.

“If we apply the regulation the best way [that] they only utilized it to me, we’ve got to present the cup again to Nigeria – as a result of half of the staff was not Ivorian,” he told the BBC.

And Thursday may convey yet one more setback in a scheduled court docket listening to the place a decide could now rule that Thiam can’t, as a non-national, lead the PDCI.

The previous two weeks have seen persevering with political and authorized debate over this complete saga, with the Thiam camp hoping {that a} mixture of widespread strain and discreet political negotiation will result in a compromise that lets him again into the presidential race, maybe together with the opposite excluded contenders.

And Ouattara, ought to he selected to not run, may wish to safeguard his spectacular observe report and safe his worldwide status by intervening with some form of deal that permits Thiam to run.

With months to go earlier than the polls, there may be nonetheless time for that. However no-one is relying on it.

Paul Melly is a consulting fellow with the Africa Programme at Chatham Home in London.