In the midst of the election campaign, supporters of Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo, demanding an end to the process, accuse the regime of using militias, the “microbes” of attacking opponents by laying in bed for societal violence. On the contrary, members of the ruling party reject these accusations and evoke deeper causes by talking about the clashes that occur during this presidential campaign.
After the passage in Abidjan of a ECOWAS Ministerial Mission, FPI-GOR (Gbagbo or nothing) qualifies as the “shame” of the delegation’s conclusions rejecting the opposition. FPI-pro-Gbagbo calls for an end to the electoral process, the postponement of the election and the opening of a dialogue. But its secretary general, Assoa Adou, has accused the regime of escorting militias commonly known as “microbes” to attack protesters. “RHDP militiamen are escorted to these locations to attack and murder protesters with bare hands. By recruiting individuals from a single ethnic group and transporting them to these localities, Alassane Dramane Ouattara artificially created an opposition between the natives of these regions and the non-natives, which is a prelude to inter-municipal clashes. This could lead to a civil war in our country if we are not careful.
“Not a new fact”
Rhdp, for its part, denies these allegations. “There is no evidence for this claim,” Sidi Touré said during a news conference at the party’s headquarters. For the campaign’s spokesman for Alassane Ouattara, the violence described as “community” has a deeper cause. “The issue of violence in the local community is once again a phenomenon that is societal, it is not new. We often have pastoralist conflicts and land conflicts with pastoralists. In some localities it happens and it is solved at the local level by the prefecture authorities. In fact, this is not a new fact. It is true that the electoral context highlights the societal evidence that we observe, often with ideological and political foundations, but this is addressed within the structural framework of the general violence observed in rural areas ”.
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