Definitely acquitted by the International Criminal Court on March 31, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo will return to Abidjan this Thursday, June 17, after a ten-year absence. What role does he intend to play? What consequences will his return have on the political scene?
From our special correspondent in Abidjan
The return to the former president’s country is accompanied by messages on social networks coming from nostalgics who are dreaming of a Gbagbo candidacy for the 2025 presidential election. In addition to the legal possibility of driving, linked to his criminal record, his relatives are careful not to use revenge vocabulary publicly. and prefers reconciliation. “Ivory Coast 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 in favor of his personal ambitions.
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“Laurent Gbagbo is still popular because of his legitimacy as the historical opponent of Houphouët,” said sociologist Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). “He knows that the attitude he will take when he returns can strongly presuppose success or otherwise his return to the political game. But its ability to mobilize is no longer the same, there is a great deal of unknown what its militant base may still be. “
A missing militant base
In fact, his party, the FPI, is bloodless today. 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 vote in the 2015 presidential election) and “GORs”, “Gbagbo or nothing”, the most the loyal apostles who remained on the fringes of the electoral system until the election last March, it is difficult for him to mobilize.
Revenue with the Together for Democracy and Sovereignty (EDS) platform, allied almost everywhere with the PDCI, “GOR” now has 17 deputies out of 255. In the municipality of Yopougon, adopted bastion of the former president of Abidjan, only 18% participated, with 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.
In addition to his person, and if he wants to rebuild a political apparatus, Laurent Gbagbo’s first job will therefore be to reunite his party. Obviously for those close to him who make sure that “everyone will kneel, and pity for those who will not be there”. The balance of power does not please Pascal Affi N’Guessan, first prime minister of Laurent Gbagbo, who in the press denied his arrival at the airport on Thursday and prefers to remain silent about the rest of the events.
Concern at RHDP
“Authorities want Laurent Gbagbo to be discreet,” said political scientist Sylvain N’Guessan. This is the reason why Alassane Ouattara has not yet formally granted amnesty to his predecessor in the case of the “division of BCEAO”. He wants “to get his resignation” adds Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné.
However, no one imagines Laurent Gbagbo staying away from the political life that the federations lead victims of the post-election crisis. “He will not return to politics for the simple reason that he has never left it,” comments his former adviser and friend Bernard Houdin.
On the RHDP side, we are concerned about the “strategies” of the one whose opponent has been nicknamed the “baker” for his ability to roll them in flour. “Doubt settles in the hearts of the people, Gbagbo does not. Has never apologized to the nation we have the right to doubt his desire for the reconciliation of the Ivorians,” the statement of the presidential party tweeted on Monday.
However, the majority can not afford to take part in the confrontation: “The president has lost the two” pivots “of his power in a few months”, reminds Sylvain N’Guessan of the deaths of Prime Ministers Amadou Gon Coulibaly and Hamed Bakayoko, “his entourage is shrinking”. “Ouattara himself wants to reconstruct the image of the reconciler, of the peacemaker and limit the political failure he has suffered through this legal battle at the ICC,” analyzes Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné. “At the same time, the party in power is aware of the political reconfiguration that this return may generate. He failed to oppose or prevent it and therefore wants to “handle” this return to his advantage by trying to maintain the political initiative. “
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Parties, tools at the service of one person
For many Ivorians, it is above all the ghost of a new “battle between the big heads”, as the head of an offensive association says, that returns. At 87 years old, Henri Konan Bédié is still the PDCI’s supervisor, separates the factions in it, appears every day in the party press, receives delegations from all other political currents in 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 potential candidates by 2025. According to our various speakers, the problem is that parties are not institutions, but “tools built for a person’s exclusive service, removal would involve a high risk of implosion, explains Sylvain N’Guessan.
“In addition to rejecting the ego’s struggle, and in particular a gerontocratic elite that does not represent the structure of the population at all (77.73% of the population is under the age of 35), there is a reassessment of methods of political participation,” believes Fahiraman Rodrigue Koné. people realize that they are only being used as a brutal force, an armed wing of the elders who abandon them once they come to power. Young people finally want to take responsibility and no longer believe in the sincerity of politicians to change their destiny. has been constantly low since 2010. Very few register on the electoral list even if they continue to participate in the political debate, especially via social networks, the sociologist concludes.
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