Domestic Politics

After nearly two years in exile in neighbouring countries, Charles Blé Goudé, the leader of the pro-Gbagbo ‘Young Patriots’, was finally arrested by Interpol on 17 January at his home in Tema (Ghana), and then extradited to Côte d’Ivoire. Accused of war crimes for his involvement in the 2010 post-election crisis and suspected by the ICC of being “indirect co-author” of crimes against humanity, he was subject to an arrest warrant issued by the Ivorian justice department. Two other Gbagbo allies − Jean-Noel Abehi, a top gendarmerie official, and Jean-Yves Dibopieu, a leader of Côte d’Ivoire’s student federation involved with the Young Patriots − were also arrested in Ghana and extradited to Abidjan on 5 February. Abehi was cited in a UN Group of Experts report issued in October 2012 as one of the leading Ghana-based pro-Gbagbo exiles and behind several armed raids in Côte d’Ivoire in August 2012.

The municipal and regional elections were finally scheduled for 21 April. They had been planned to take place on 24 February but were postponed due to a new attempt to improve dialogue between the opposition and the government coalition composed of the ‘Rassemblement des Républicains’ (RDR) and the ‘Parti Démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire’ (PDCI). The new date was proposed by the ‘Commission Électorale Indépendante’ (CEI) and approved by the Council of Ministers on 13 February. Immediately after the announcement, and in spite of government efforts to promote maximum participation by political parties, the ‘Front Populaire Ivoirien’ (FPI), former president Gbagbo’s party, indicated that it would not contest the elections. Party spokesman Richard Kodjo argued that the date had been set without consultation and he called for CEI’s restructuring and an amnesty for imprisoned supporters of the FPI. For the first time in 12 years, some 5.7 m Ivorian voters went to the polls on 21 April to elect their regional and municipal councillors in an election involving 31 regions and 197 municipalities (‘communes’). Gbagbo’s regime had increased the number of municipalities from 191 in 2001 to 1,323, but district reforms in 2012 had brought this back to the more realistic figure of 197. The ballot was monitored by 30,000 police, gendarmes and soldiers, supported by forces of the UN Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI). Partial results announced by the CEI on 22 April led to incidents in Abidjan, Yamoussoukro and Ferkessedougou. Independent candidates, who had not been selected by the ruling coalition, and FPI politicians who ignored their party’s boycott, were returned in 70 communes, but many of them later rallied to the RDR or PDCI. The final results gave the RDR the lead with 96 communes, followed by the PDCI (48 communes) and independents (44 communes). The ruling coalition also won the regional polls, with 11 regions going to the RDR, four to the PDCI, and nine to the ‘Rassemblement des Houphouétistes pour la Démocratie et la Paix’ (RHDP) – an alliance between the RDR, PDCI, the ‘Union pour la Démocratie et la Paix en Côte d’Ivoire’ (UPDI) and the ‘Mouvement des Forces d’Avenir’ (MFA). Independents took five regions.

On 16 February, police fired tear gas to disperse a banned protest in Abidjan. The ban had been broadcast the previous evening by Interior Minister Hamed Bakayoko. Fifty young people shouting “Free Gbagbo” were pushed back when they tried to reach Yopougon, a long-lasting pro-Gbagbo stronghold. Police received support from a UNOCI contingent, equipped with armoured vehicles.

On 14 March, a heavily armed commando group attacked an army post in the village of Zilebly (Bloléquin district) along the volatile and porous border with Liberia. The assailants came from Liberia and were led by a former Gbagbo warlord named “Colombo”, based in Touzon, the village of former Liberian president Samuel Doe. The attackers’ claimed objective was to free the western region of foreigners. To create confusion, the commandos were dressed like Dozo fighters (traditional hunters from northern Côte d’Ivoire who fought on Ouattara’s side during the 2011 conflict). Seven people were killed during the clashes, including four civilians.

The release of the UN Group of Experts report on 28 April fuelled the long-lasting polemic about the impunity granted to former rebel leaders and militias who had taken Ouattara’s side in his 2011 showdown with Laurent Gbagbo. The report accused these leaders, who had been integrated into the national army or given high-level positions in the new Ouattara administration such as district or regional prefectures, of being part of a smuggling network active in the export of goods such as cocoa, gold, diamonds, cotton and timber. Justice and Human Rights Minister Gnenema Coulibaly told a news conference that the government would not protect anyone involved in theft or smuggling, and asked for evidence in order to make further investigations. In November, the cocoa trial began in Abidjan, involving people formerly on the side of the Gbagbo regime. In this case, the former bosses of cocoa management boards were prosecuted for allegedly embezzling hundreds of millions of euros between 2002 and 2008. The inquiry had been opened in October 2007 at the request of then-president Gbagbo and led to the arrest of almost all the managers in the sector, including some close allies of the former head of state. On 6 November, 14 managers were sentenced to 20 years, while 13 were acquitted. However, the prosecutor did not insist that those convicted be put in detention, and it remained unclear when they would begin serving their sentence. Lawyers said it was a political trial.

Government Secretary-General Amadou Gon Coulibaly announced on 25 July that, following a decision by President Ouattara, the cabinet mining portfolio would be transferred to Industry Minister Jean-Claude Brou. The portfolio was taken away from Adama Toungara, who had been serving as minister of mines, oil and energy, as a consequence of a dispute with gold miners over a proposed windfall tax on profits and recurring delays in drafting a new mining code.

On 22 May, the media regulatory body ‘Conseil National de la Presse’ banned the opposition paper ‘Bol’Kotch’. The satirical newspaper was accused of publishing misleading images and allegations about the president. In a decision on 5 August, which was presented as a pacification measure, the judicial authorities ordered the release of 14 top allies of ex-president Gbagbo, although their prosecutions were not suspended. Those provisionally released included Gbagbo’s son, Michel, the head of the FPI, Pascal Affi N’Guessan, and the former governor of the BCEAO, Philippe Henry Dacoury-Tabley. Michel Amani N’Guessan, a senior FPI official, welcomed the move but made it clear that national reconciliation could only begin once all of the party’s members had been released, including Gbagbo himself, who had been transferred to the ICC in 2011.

While the political climate between government and opposition improved, relations between the two government parties came under pressure. The PDCI, in a communiqué issued in Yamoussoukro on 17 August, accused the RDR of unfairness and complained that the PDCI’s senior people were being marginalised in the management of the administration. These complaints were reiterated during the PDCI congress on 6 October. Henri Konan Bédié, the 79-year-old former head of state, accepted the party’s ticket to run in the 2015 presidential elections. The congress gave Bédié overwhelming support, even though he was technically too old to run under existing party rules; the rules were modified accordingly. Bédié was challenged by two other contenders, including the president of the party’s youth branch, Kouadio Konan Bertin, whose supporters stressed that it was time for change. Nevertheless, Bédié got 93% of the vote.

The fourth extraordinary session of the National Assembly opened on 12 August. It was set to discuss new legislation to facilitate access to citizenship for millions of foreigners and improve state regulation of land ownership, the two issues at the heart of a decade of political crisis and violence. Two nationality laws were passed on 23 August: one allowing foreigners to acquire Ivorian citizenship upon marriage, the other enabling foreign-born residents living in Côte d’Ivoire since before independence and foreign nationals born in Côte d’Ivoire between 1961 and 1973, and their children, to become citizens. The Assembly also voted to extend a grace period for the implementation of the 1998 rural land law, giving landholders ten years to prove legal claims to their property.

On 3 July, during a visit to the northern town of M’Bengue, President Ouattara acknowledged for the first time in comments broadcast on state television that he would seek re-election following the end of his term. The president’s office announced on 2 December that the 2015 presidential elections would be held in October. A presidential spokesperson said that Ouattara was not interested in recovering the time lost in the wake of the 2011 polls, when his assumption of office was delayed by more than five months as a result of Gbagbo’s refusal to admit defeat.

Political dialogue between the RDR and Gbagbo’s FPI finally resumed, following an offer by Ouattara to the FPI, during a visit to Didiévi in December, that they might possibly participate in the government. The two parties met on 9 December at the RDR’s headquarters to discuss the organisation of a national conference proposed by the FPI. Pascal Affi N’Guessan, FPI president, and RDR interim secretary-general Amadou Soumahoro said that discussion, exchange and dialogue were the necessary steps to resolve the issues faced by the nation.

On 16 December, the ICC decided to uphold its decision not to hear charges against Laurent Gbagbo concerning crimes against humanity. As in June, it requested more evidence to confirm these charges.

Foreign Affairs

Only two resolutions (out of 46) were passed by the UNSC on Côte d’Ivoire. On 17 January, Bert Koenders, the UN secretary-general’s special representative for Côte d’Ivoire (and soon to be appointed UN special representative in Mali), reminded the Council that the stability and economic success of the country were critical to the stability of West Africa. Setting out the context of growing Islamism in the sub-region, he urged continued support for Côte d’Ivoire to address the remaining challenges and root causes of its earlier crisis. On 15 February, the Ivorian ambassador to the UN, Youssoufou Bamba, confirmed the accession of Côte d’Ivoire to the ICC with the ratification of the Treaty of Rome. Ahead of a planned downsizing of UNOCI, he told the UNSC on 16 April that surveillance drones should be deployed to offset any planned cuts. Bamba was following a report by the UN secretary-general about deployment of drones in the DRC and possibly in Côte d’Ivoire. Resolution 2101, passed on 25 April, extended until 30 April 2014 the mandate of the UN Group of Experts in charge of the monitoring progress and enforcement of sanctions, as well as measures to prevent the supply of arms to the country and the trade in rough diamonds. The Council reiterated its concern about the unresolved challenges of DDR and security sector reform. International support was confirmed on 30 July by Resolution 2112, which extended the mandate of UNOCI and French troops (a small remaining contingent of 450) until 30 June 2014. This extension, however, confirmed the objective of reducing UN military personnel. The number of UNOCI troops fell from 9,583 in January to 8,837 in July (with a target of 7,137 in July 2014). Their stationing in high-risk areas in western Côte d’Ivoire was also requested.

The new UN top envoy in Côte d’Ivoire, Ms Aïchatou Souleymane (who took over as the head of UNOCI in place of Bert Koenders on 6 July) met with the National Assembly Speaker Guillaume Soro on 12 August. She confirmed the UN’s full support and expressed her wish to work with all stakeholders in the national reconciliation and peace process, and to facilitate reforms ahead of upcoming elections in 2015.

Following a first attack in October 2012 against a Greek vessel, pirates seized a Panama-flagged oil tanker on 16 January. It was anchored in Abidjan and unable to put out a distress call in time to be rescued. Another vessel – a French tanker – was hijacked in international waters off Abidjan on 3 February. The increase in piracy in the western part of the Gulf of Guinea was presented as a consequence of reinforced patrols by Nigeria and Benin. Regional cooperation was improved and resulted in a heads of state conference on maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea in Yaoundé on 24 June, with President Ouattara attending.

On 22 November in Johannesburg (South Africa), the annual assembly of the Kimberley Process – the world’s diamond watchdog – gave its backing to the lifting of the 2005 UN embargo (Resolution 1643) on the sale of diamonds from Côte d’Ivoire. The assembly, with delegates attending from 81 countries, acknowledged that the country had fulfilled the minimum requirements under the group’s certification system. The decision cleared a major hurdle for Côte d’Ivoire to resume trading its diamonds on the international market.

All year long, tensions with neighbouring countries were a major concern. On 25 January, a long-standing dispute with Guinea about border demarcation was revived when around 40 Guinean troops entered a border village and removed the Ivorian flag. The issue was discussed by the two foreign ministers in the margins of an ECOWAS summit in Yamoussoukro on 28 February. The two states committed themselves to resolving the dispute peacefully and decided to withdraw their respective armies from the area. A joint commission to delineate the border was re-established.

The recurring tension and sporadic violence in the border area with Liberia and a deadly raid in March near Bloléquin led to a meeting in Monrovia (Liberia) on 5 April that brought together the Ivorian and Liberian governments and the two UN peacekeeping missions in their countries (UNOCI and the UN Mission in Liberia). The meeting’s objectives were to discuss security issues, to deal with the recent attack in the border region, to explore ways in which the UN missions could support the security of the region, and to address the sources of conflict, including the return of refugees, reconciliation, and distribution of humanitarian aid. The participants agreed to strengthen collaboration and coordination between the security forces through exchange of intelligence information, to mutually reinforce security along the border, and to conduct joint riverine and land border patrols. Cooperation between the two countries was consolidated with the participation of Ouattara and Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf in the Joint Council of Chiefs and Elders of frontier communities on 19 October in Zwedru, on the Liberian side of the border.

Relations with Ghana, where approximately 8,600 refugees remained, including a group of high-profile Gbagbo associates, were a recurring concern. After previously claiming that it considered Gbagbo’s exiled supporters to be ‘refugees’, the Ghanaian authorities progressively amended their position, as shown by the extradition of Charles Blé Goudé in January. However, bilateral ties worsened again in the course of the Justin Kone Katinan case. Katinan, a budget minister in the Gbagbo government and exiled in Ghana, had been acting as Gbagbo’s spokesman since the former president’s arrest. Extradition proceedings against him had been under way since August 2012, when he was arrested but then released by a Ghanaian court, which considered the Ivorian justice department’s charges to be insufficient. Katinan was charged by prosecutors in Côte d’Ivoire with 20 counts of conspiracy to rob. Notably, it was alleged that he had robbed a series of banks in the commercial capital Abidjan to keep afloat the Gbagbo government, crippled by sanctions after Gbagbo’s refusal to cede power in the wake of the 2010 election. Ahead of a new hearing on 11 June, Katinan called the charges politically motivated. The court deferred its decision to 5 August. On 29 August, it finally decided to reject the extradition request by dismissing the robbery charges, saying the evidence was not credible. It also said the allegations were not devoid of suspicion of being politically motivated.

The construction and near completion by Ghana of a dam and reservoir on the Black Volta was another source of tension. The Ivorian authorities expressed concern about the possible environmental and social impact on the Boundoukou region of the Bui Hydroelectric Dam – a 400 MW Chinese-built dam located 50 km from the border. In a letter dated 17 June, Côte d’Ivoire said the Ghanaian government had failed to consult it, thus violating international regulations about cross-border projects.

Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana decided to recommence talks to settle a dispute over their maritime boundary. (Ghana had awarded licences for exploration of oil and gas reserves in a disputed off-shore area.) Government spokesman Bruno Kone said on 26 November that the two heads of state had formally decided to work towards a peaceful resolution of the dispute and a mutually agreeable solution. Ghana’s giant Jubilee oil and gas field had been discovered in 2007 and production had begun in 2010. Côte d’Ivoire was concerned by its partial access to the field’s reserves.

President Ouattara, who was also ECOWAS chair, was actively engaged in diplomacy. He started with a three-day visit to Germany aimed at developing economic partnerships. He met Chancellor Merkel and spoke at the Parliament in Berlin. Mali was high on his agenda, and the Ivorian president attended the AU donor conference in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) on 29 January and another in Paris on 15 May. Ouattara met the president of the EU Commission in Brussels the following day, and made a state visit to Benin on 8 March. Accompanied by several ministers and businessmen, he was in Doha (Qatar) for a state visit on 12–14 May, and it was resolved that Côte d’Ivoire would open a new embassy there. Ouattara attended the AU’s 50th anniversary in Addis Ababa on 25 May and then visited Japan for the Tokyo International Conference for African Development in Yokohama (2 June). He continued to Paris on 5 June, where French President François Hollande received the UNESCO Felix Houphouet-Boigny Prize for Peace for his involvement in the resolution of the Malian crisis. Successive visits to Brazzaville, Libreville and Yaoundé kept Ouattara away from Abidjan for almost the whole month and this long absence triggered criticism from the opposition and media. Ouattara attended the inauguration of Mali’s new head of state, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, on 19 September and also participated in the UN General Assembly in New York on 25 September, and in the Africa-France Conference in Paris on 4 December.

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan paid a state visit on 1–2 March and President Ouattara also hosted President Michel Sleiman of Lebanon for a three-day official visit on 15–18 March. Abidjan announced the re-opening of its embassy in Beirut, closed since 1988. Several economic agreements were signed and a joint commission was reactivated. The Lebanese community, numbering around 100,000 persons, is the largest non-African community in Côte d’Ivoire.

Prime Minister Duncan travelled to Canada on 25–29 September where he participated in the Forum Africa 2013 Conference in Montreal. A bilateral agreement on promotion and protection of foreign investments was signed. When touring several West African capitals, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls visited Côte d’Ivoire on 15–16 November. He met his counterpart Hamed Bakayoko and signed a convention on security issues.

Socioeconomic Developments

The year started with three days of mourning for the 64 people killed during a stampede on New Year’s Eve. President Ouattara visited injured people in hospital and offered his condolences.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde spent three days in the country in January and called for “a second Ivorian economic miracle”, referring to the first miracle in the golden 1970s. She met President Ouattara, Prime Minister Duncan, Parliamentary Speaker Guillaume Soro, and MPs, private sector representatives and civil society groups. The president confirmed Côte d’Ivoire’s ambition to become an emerging country by 2020 and Lagarde welcomed the ambitious National Development Plan for 2012–15. The IMF was helping the country with a three-year ECF of $ 615.9 m. Lagarde announced the reopening of the IMF West African Regional Technical Assistance Centre (AFRITAC) in Abidjan, which was presented as another sign of the new climate of trust.

FDI in the energy sector increased. Chinese state-owned hydropower engineering firm Sinohydro started to build a 275 MW hydroelectric power station near the western town of Soubre, benefiting from a $ 500 m low-interest loan from China’s Export-Import Bank signed on 9 January by the Chinese ambassador. The extension of the gas-fired Azito plant outside Abidjan by UK-based Globeleq and Hyundai Engineering and Construction began on 21 March with the objective of increasing power production by 50%. The expansion was expected to cost $ 414 m and would be supported by the IFC and European development institutions. Following President Ouattara’s state visit to Doha in May, the Qatari and Ivorian governments agreed on conditions for the supply of liquefied natural gas from Qatar to Côte d’Ivoire in 2015 and on the development of oil exploration and production. With these major investments, Côte d’Ivoire, which already exported electricity to Ghana, Burkina Faso, Benin, Togo and Mali, consolidated its position as a major power supplier in West Africa. This position was confirmed in August by the decision to develop a power line connecting the country with the MRU states. A bill adopted by the Ivorian parliament on 19 August authorised Ouattara to ratify a treaty for the construction, operation and development of 1,400 km of high voltage transmission lines connecting Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Among other major investments, a preliminary deal for a new container port in Abidjan was agreed with a consortium led by French conglomerate Bollore, which also included France’s Bouygues and a subsidiary of Danish shipping giant Maersk. Additional Chinese funding of $ 2 bn was announced on 15 July for the construction of a railway line between San Pedro, the country’s second port, and the city of Man near the Guinean border. This project, together with the new Soubre hydropower plant, was aimed at boosting regional development and facilitating the exploitation of mineral resources in the west of the country.

Bargaining started as usual ahead of the opening of the cocoa selling season between the sector regulator − the ‘Conseil du Café Cacao’ (CCC) − and the cocoa exporters, and on 30 August they rejected the price structure produced by the 2012 reforms. Exporters demanded an increase to take into account additional costs, especially those of transport and taxation. They were followed by farmers, who said the government had failed to guarantee a minimum price and pointed to a lack of enforcement, which allowed merchants to undercut the price. Consequently, the guaranteed minimum price for cocoa was raised for the new 2013/14 main crop from CFAfr 725 to CFAfr 750 ($ 1.55) per kg. The new price, slightly above the CCC recommendation, was decided at a cabinet meeting chaired by Ouattara on 2 October. The decision was largely welcomed by farmers, and exporters said the price increase would probably discourage smuggling to neighbouring Ghana. In the following weeks, concern that a significant drop in the cocoa might lead to a supply crunch fuelled strong competition among grinders, pushing up prices at port and to farmers. Exporters with local processing facilities (including Cargill, Barry Callebaut, CEMOI and ADM – among the industry’s biggest players) said on 17 October that they were already paying CFAfr 845/kg in order to secure volumes.

At the end of the year, estimated GDP growth was at 8.2%, a slight decrease from the 9.5% real growth of 2012. Despite these encouraging results, living conditions for most people remained difficult as a result of poverty. GDP per capita (measured in the 2005 $ value) remained below the level reached in 2000, and 60% of the population were under 25 years of age.