Domestic Politics

The overarching motif of Côte d’Ivoire’s domestic politics in 2022 was the state-led national reconciliation process, which included the conclusion of the political dialogue between the government, 21 political parties, and 26 civil society actors, as well as the olive branch extended by President Alassane Ouattara to two of his main rivals and the steps taken towards electoral reform. However, concerns remained that electoral politics would continue to provoke intra-communal violence. For example, despite the headway being made on normalising the political conversation after years of tensions and electoral violence, Côte d’Ivoire retained its mediocre ranking (49th out of 100) from the previous year on the Freedom House ‘freedom index’, which ranks a country’s level of political and civil liberties.

On 22 April, in his State of the Union address to parliament in Yamoussoukro, President Ouattara congratulated all the political actors involved in the so-called national dialogue for their commitment to the reconciliation process and to distancing themselves from using violence as a political strategy. He insisted that the country had now achieved ‘a consolidated peace and stability’, confirmed by the participation of all political parties in the March 2021 legislative elections. The fifth phase of the national dialogue, consisting of a series of consultations with political and civil society actors, had been initiated under the direction of Prime Minister Patrick Achi in December 2021 in the wake of the 2020 presidential elections, which saw widespread electoral violence and an opposition boycott in response to the president’s candidacy for a third term in office. In the absence of any real challengers at the poll, Ouattara won the elections with 95% of the vote, further polarising the already fraught Ivorian political landscape.

The consultation process was formally concluded in March, with all parties co-signing a final report featuring recommendations for preparation for the municipal and regional elections, scheduled for October 2023. The central recommendations of the final report of the national dialogue included a reform of the funding mechanism for electoral candidates, and reparations to be paid to the victims of the 2020 electoral violence, in which at least 20 but most likely more than 80 people were killed. The report also emphasised the need for a transparent and inclusive reform process relating to the Independent Electoral Commission.

In addition to the national dialogue, efforts were made to reconcile the key political figures involved in the violent and destabilising political competition over more than three decades, namely President Alassane Ouattara and former presidents Henri Konan Bédié and Laurent Gbagbo. While Ouattara and Bédié had formed an electoral coalition against incumbent president Gbagbo in 2010, they had since parted ways and faced off as rivals in the 2020 electoral campaign, with Bédié eventually boycotting the vote. Gbagbo returned to the country in June 2021, having been acquitted by the icc on charges of crimes against humanity following the conflict that followed the 2010 elections. The three veterans of Ivorian politics met in Abidjan on 14 July to discuss the way forward in a seemingly friendly atmosphere, and Ouattara also used the meeting to invite his two predecessors to the Independence Day celebrations in Yamoussoukro on 8 August.

Following this rapprochement with his long-standing political rivals, President Ouattara extended an additional olive branch to his former arch-rival. In a televised speech on 7 August, one day ahead of the country’s 62nd Independence Day, President Ouattara stated that he had signed the presidential pardon of Laurent Gbagbo ‘in the interest of strengthening social cohesion’. The presidential decree also determined that Gbagbo’s bank accounts be unfrozen and that his lifetime presidential annuity be paid. Contrary to the charges brought before the icc, of which he had been acquitted, the Ivorian courts had convicted Gbagbo, along with three of his former ministers, to 20 years in prison and a fine of CFAfr 329 bn (approximately € 500 m) for stealing assets from the Central Bank of West African States (bceao) during the 2010–11 electoral crisis. Ouattara also announced a decree calling for the ‘conditional release’ of Vagba Faussignaux and Jean-Noël Abéhi, two of Gbagbo’s key military figures, convicted for their role in the 2010–11 electoral crisis, during which more than 3,000 people were killed by armed actors on both sides of the conflict.

Another former member of Gbagbo’s inner circle, Charles Blé Goudé, also sought redemption in 2022. Blé Goudé became known as the ‘street general’ because of his key role in mobilising pro-Gbagbo youths before and during the Ivorian civil war (2000–11), primarily through the Jeunes Patriotes movement that he founded in 2002. Having been charged alongside Gbagbo before the icc for crimes against humanity, he was acquitted in March 2021 and had publicly expressed his desire to return to Côte d’Ivoire. On 30 September, Blé Goudé’s return was authorised by President Ouattara, and on 26 November, the former minister for sports and youth set foot on Ivorian soil once more. His return had been facilitated through the national dialogue, during which he had chosen Pascal Affi N’Guessan’s Front Populaire Ivoirien (fpi), and not Gbagbo’s breakaway faction Parti des peuples africains – Côte d’Ivoire (ppa-ci), to intervene on his behalf. As the case was given public prominence, it was handled by Ouattara’s chief of staff, Claude Sahi, an alum of the influential Fédération estudiantine et scolaire de Côte d’Ivoire (fesci), which Blé Goudé led for a few years in the late 1990s. Blé Goudé remained sentenced by the Ivorian courts to 20 years in prison and 10 years of ineligibility for political office for ‘acts of torture, intentional homicides and rape’. Blé Goudé’s return further illustrated the ongoing political reshuffling in Ivorian politics, as he was received by Pascal Affi N’Guessan and former first lady Simone Gbagbo (mgc), but without the attendance of his estranged patron, Laurent Gbagbo. Instead, Gbagbo’s ppa-ci was represented by a small delegation of mid-ranking party officials, led by deputy secretary-general Mangoné Bi Patrick. Another notable absentee at Blé Goudé’s welcome tribute was Damana Pickass, another fesci alum and member of Gbagbo’s inner circle.

In addition to these high-profile signs of a shift towards de-escalation and reshuffling in the political arena, the polarising 2020 presidential elections, which were boycotted by the opposition, seemed to have given way to a more normalised political process, illustrated by the participation of the opposition in important legislative votes, such as the election of the ruling party’s Adama Bictogo as the new speaker of the national assembly on 8 June.

The tone of reconciliation in Ivorian politics did not, however, preclude a certain sense of drama in the continued reshuffling ahead of the 2023 and 2025 electoral contests. Most notably, the country’s former president and first lady, Laurent and Simone Gbagbo, carried their private grievances into politics. The couple, who had jointly founded fpi in exile in 1982, formally divorced in 2021 and proceeded to establish new political movements of their own. Laurent had launched the ppa-ci in October 2021, and Simone founded the Mouvement des générations capables (mgc). In August, the mgc officially became a political party, aiming to participate in the 2023 vote. While Laurent Gbagbo’s decision to definitively part ways with the fpi, led during his absence by N’Guessan, the fragmentation of the former ruling party continued as Simone Gbagbo’s mgc succeeded in recruiting a range of former high-profile fpi figures, including former ministers Lazare Koffi Koffi, Gilbert Marie Aké N’Gbo, Richard Kouamé Secré, Émile Guiriéoulou, and Thomas N’Guessan. With this consolidation of Simone Gbagbo as a political player to be reckoned with, speculations were already being raised about the potential of the former spouses facing off in the 2025 presidential elections.

Another key issue ahead of the 2023 and 2025 election remained the reform of the Independent Electoral Commission (cei), a recurring grievance in Ivorian politics, which led the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to judgments questioning the cei’s impartiality in 2016 and again in 2020, following irregularities in the initial reform process at the sub-national level. During the fifth phase of the national dialogue, the government had made admissions in terms of the composition of the cei, admitting two new members representing opposition parties to the 16-member legal body, representing Laurent Gbagbo’s ppa-ci and the Union pour la démocratie et la paix en Côte d’Ivoire (udpci), led by Albert Mabri Toikeusse. The new cei composition was being prepared during the year, but had not yet taken effect at year’s end.

Finally, the cei conducted a country-wide revision of the list of registered voters, insisting that the approximately 7.5 m registered voters was an unsatisfactorily low number and that at least an additional 2.5 m and preferably up to 5 m more voters should be registered. Practical arrangements were made to automatically include all Ivorian citizens holding a national identity card on the lists in order to avoid expensive and time-consuming registration procedures. The revision of the voter registration list was initiated on 19 November and, after a slight delay, was concluded on 10 December to the general satisfaction of both external observers and the political actors involved.

In addition to the conclusion of the political dialogue, electoral reforms, and the outline of new political alliances, Côte d’Ivoire’s year in domestic politics was dominated by the unravelling of a large-scale cocaine trafficking corridor. On 15 April, the Narcotics and Drugs Police Department (dpsd) was alerted to the discovery by local police of a significant stock of cocaine in an apartment in the central Koumassi Sopim neighbourhood in Abidjan. On 21 April, additional stocks of cocaine were seized in the coastal town of San Pedro, bringing the total find to 2.075 tonnes. The drugs were assumed to have been trafficked from Paraguay and Colombia, to include accomplices in Lebanon, Spain, and Italy, and to be worth more than € 60 m. It was further assumed to have been intended for a European, not a local Ivorian, market. A similar seizure had been made in 2021, suggesting that Côte d’Ivoire had become a node in a wide-reaching cocaine trafficking corridor, a fact lamented by the minister of the interior and security, Diomandé Vagondo, at a press conference following the new finds. According to the Spanish police, the corridor was estimated to be trafficking between 50 and 60 tonnes of cocaine annually. Several well-known Ivorian businessmen were suspected of being involved in the trade; investigation into these charges were still ongoing at year’s end.

Foreign Affairs

Ivorian foreign affairs continued the trend of recent years of preoccupation with the growing threat of jihadist terrorism emanating from Mali and, increasingly, Burkina Faso to the north. In 2022, in addition to the challenges of containing the security threat and addressing the needs of a growing number of people displaced from the Sahel region to northern Côte d’Ivoire, the Ivorian authorities were involved in an extended diplomatic crisis with the military junta in Mali, following the arrest of 49 Ivorian soldiers upon their arrival in Bamako on 10 July. Prior to the arrest, Ouattara had, in fact, been among the sub-region’s few heads of state in favour of lifting the ecowas sanctions against Mali. But as the diplomatic crisis escalated, relations between Ouattara and the head of the Malian military junta, Assimi Goïta, deteriorated considerably.

The soldiers were of the 8th Detachment of the National Support Element (nse), led by Lieutenant Adam Sanni Kouassi of the Ivorian Special Forces, and were deployed in support of the German contingent of the UN Mission in Mali, minusma. However, due to irregularities in the administrative preparations for their arrival to Mali, the detachment was detained, accused by the military junta of being ‘mercenaries’. In the days following the arrest, the un failed to provide clarity on the mission and mandate of the Ivorian soldiers, with minusma spokesperson Olivier Salgado stating that the soldiers were not an official part of the UN-led mission but had ‘been deployed for several years in Mali as part of logistical support on behalf of one of the Mission’s contingents’.

On 12 July, following an extraordinary meeting of the Ivorian National Security Council (cns) and exchanges with the president of Guinea-Bissau and of the ecowas Conference of Heads of State, Umaru Sissoco Embaló, and Togolese president Faure Gnassingbé, a close ally of the Malian junta leader, President Ouattara called on the Malian military junta ‘to release, without delay, the Ivorian soldiers unjustly arrested’. The Malian junta responded in a press release published on 18 July, calling for mediation by Togo, following a visit by Togolese minister of foreign affairs Robert Dussey.

Alongside regional and bilateral negotiations and mediation efforts, high-level UN officials engaged in the diplomatic crisis. Contrary to the ambivalent statements made by his lower-ranking UN representatives, unsg António Guterres stated unequivocally, on 19 September, that the Ivorian soldiers ‘are not mercenaries’ and called for their release. Following an UN-initiated round of consultations, an ecowas delegation led by presidents Adama Barrow of Gambia and Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana arrived in Mali on 29 September, accompanied by Dussey as the appointed mediator in the affair.

After an initial failure to break the deadlock, diplomatic efforts continued in the following months. But the progress was deemed too slow by the ecowas heads of state, who issued a joint statement on 4 December during a summit in Abuja, demanding the release of the remaining 46 Ivorian soldiers by 1 January and threatening to impose further sanctions on the Malian military junta if it did not comply. The ecowas ultimatum initially seemed to sway the Malian junta, as a delegation from Abidjan led by Ouattara’s brother, minister of defence Téné Birahima Ouattara, was received by Goïta on 22 December in a meeting that resulted in the signing of a memorandum to ensure the release of the prisoners, supervised by Dussey.

However, in yet another twist in this drama, the case was brought before a criminal trial court – the court of assizes in Bamako – on 28 December, with a verdict being reached only two days later by the attorney-general. The 46 male detainees were found guilty of ‘attack and conspiracy against the government’, ‘undermining the external security of the State’, and ‘possession, carrying and transport of weapons and ammunition of war … intended to disturb public order through intimidation or terror’, and were sentenced to 20 years in prison and a fine of CFAfr 2 m each. The three female soldiers who had been released in September were convicted in absentia to the death penalty and a fine of CFAfr 10 m each. Despite this dramatic set-back, Ouattara – in his New Year’s address to the nation on 31 December, broadcast on national television channel rti – insisted that the 46 soldiers would be returning ‘soon’.

The diplomatic crisis between Côte d’Ivoire and Mali unfolded againt the backdrop of growing concerns around the southward spread of jihadist insurgencies from the Sahelian region. The regional security situation continued its deterioration, with attacks on Ivorian soil dating back to June 2020 primarily attributed to the jihadist group Katiba Macina, led by Amadou Koufa, supported by the Al-Qaida-affiliated Support Group for Islam and Muslims (gsim). In addition to the gradual upscaling of border security measures and military deployments in the northern regions of the country, the Ivorian authorities began the implementation of its new counter-terrorism strategy. At the heart of the strategy, a new Anti-Terrorist Operational Intelligence Centre (croat; Centre de renseignement opérationnel antiterroriste) was created by presidential decree on 6 August 2021, under the dual supervision of the president and the minister of defence. Led by Gendarmerie Colonel Ousmane Yeo, the croat was made up of five cells responsible for collecting and analysing intelligence, technological support, international cooperation, and operations. The country’s urban centres, as well as areas considered particularly vulnerable to attacks, were given the highest priority in the strategy, which was set to be implemented in January 2023, outlining the intention to established mixed patrols consisting of soldiers, gendarmes, and police to provide a more enduring security force presence on the ground.

The EU provided financial and other support to initiatives in this regard, for example through programmes intended to improve border security, promote intercommunal dialogue, and address the challenges of informal, or artisanal, gold mining in and around Tengréla in the north, which was perceived as a potential recruiting zone for jihadist groups. The EU, along with France’s bilateral investment, also continued its support for the International Counter-Terrorism Academy (ailct), inaugurated in June 2021 in Jacqueville, 70 kilometres north of Abidjan.

On 5 September, Burkina Faso’s military junta leader, Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had seized power in a bloodless coup on 24 January, made his first official visit to Abidjan, meeting with Alassane Ouattara to discuss the consolidation of security cooperation between the two governments in the face of the region’s escalating security crisis, as well as the road-map for Burkina Faso’s transition towards new elections. Ouattara complimented Damiba for his efforts to improve regional security, mindful of the continued southern spread of some jihadist groups towards the 600 km shared border between the two states and the presence of more than 10,000 displaced Burkinabé citizens in northern Côte d’Ivoire. Both leaders emphasised that the security threat of violent extremism should be dealt with at the regional level, with Ouattara vowing to honour his commitment to the Accra Initiative – a regional collaboration established in 2017 to contain the spillover of jihadist violence in the Sahel. Damiba assured the Ivorian president that his administration would adhere to the timeline negotiated with ecowas to reinstate a ‘normal constitutional order’ in Burkina Faso, and Ouattara responded with an assurance that Côte d’Ivoire would support the transitional process. Damiba also expressed his desire for a solution to be reached in the affair of the 46 soldiers arrested in Mali.

During Damiba’s visit to Abidjan, he also met with former Burkina Faso president Blaise Compaoré, exiled in Côte d’Ivoire since his 27-year reign was ended by popular mobilisation in 2014. Damiba had caused some controversy early in the year when he invited the disgraced leader back onto Burkinabé soil in an effort to further what Damiba referred to as ‘national reconciliation’. Damiba’s visit in Côte d’Ivoire in these ways confirmed the impression of a foreign policy aligned more with Ouattara and, by extension, France – in contrast to the approach of his Malian counterpart, junta leader Assimi Goïta, who had marked a clear anti-French diplomatic line.

The warm diplomatic ties between Côte d’Ivoire and Burkina Faso soon cooled considerably, as Damiba was ousted in another military coup in Burkina Faso on 30 September. The new military leadership, headed by Ibrahim Traoré, immediately aligned more with the Goïta regime in Mali, as both juntas scaled up their hostility towards France and other European states, while building stronger ties to Russia, much against the foreign policy priorities of Ouattara. This new foreign policy constellation further increased Côte d’Ivoire’s security concerns, as its two northern neighbours joined diplomatic forces in pulling back on their commitment to regional collaboration around security.

The new counter-terrorism strategy, finally, also included a strategy to counter the radicalisation and recruitment of Ivorian youths, especially in the northern regions where state presence has historically been weak. The strategy sought to address these shortcomings through development efforts targeting young people in particular. In addition to domestic security interests, the scaling up of patrols in the major urban centres reflected the intention of the Ivorian authorities to reassure the international community ahead of the 2024 African Cup of Nations football championship.

While Côte d’Ivoire’s foreign policy attention was mainly directed towards the immediate sub-region in 2022, Côte d’Ivoire maintained its strong ties to key partners outside of the African continent as well. Most notably, especially considering the growing hostility in the immediate sub-region, ties with France were reconfirmed through high-level meetings, including an official visit by Catherine Colonna, French minister for Europe and foreign affairs, in December. Colonna reiterated that France remained proud to be Côte d’Ivoire’s primary foreign investor, mentioning the long-standing bilateral development and debt relief support, as well as shared efforts to combat regional jihadism and transnational smuggling.

Later in December, President Ouattara shared a similar exchange, but by phone, with China’s President Xi Jinping. Xi emphasised China’s interest in continuing and expanding its investments in Ivorian agriculture, including rice and cacao production, as well as collaboration in emerging fields such as digital economy and new energy. He also promised to continue encouraging Chinese enterprises to invest and do business in Côte d’Ivoire and reiterated his firm commitment to the one-China principle and multilateralism, and his active support of the Belt and Road Initiative. He invited more Chinese businesses to invest in cacao processing and other industries in Côte d’Ivoire and to help promote the industrialisation of the country. Both leaders expressed their investment in the forthcoming year’s celebrations of the 40th anniversary of diplomatic relations between their two countries.

Socioeconomic Developments

Considering the continued destabilisation of the West African sub-region due to armed conflict emanating from the Sahel region, the lingering socioeconomic effects of the 2020–21 Covid-19 pandemic, and the sense of a global economic crisis caused primarily by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, the Ivorian economy showed remarkable resilience in 2022, with only a slight decrease in real gdp growth, estimated at 6.7% compared with 7% in 2021. gdp per capita decreased to approximately € 2,100 in December 2022, down from approximately € 2,400 in December 2021.

According to the World Bank, growth was driven by private consumption, supported by public investment and wage increases in the civil service, as illustrated by a slight reduction in the unemployment rate, from 2.8% in 2021 to 2.6%. Inflation averaged 5.2%, its highest level in a decade and up from 1.1% in 2019, as a result of rising food (8.9%), transport (6.4%) and energy (5.7%) prices, and deteriorating terms of trade. This rise in inflation was met by a minor shift in fiscal policy, with expenditures of around 1.6 % of gdp, in turn raising the fiscal deficit to 6.8% of gdp – another discouraging decade high. The increased fiscal deficit was also caused by an increase in infrastructure spending and high interest payments. As a result, public and publicly guaranteed debt increased to 56.9% of gdp, from 52.1% of gdp in 2021. Industry, including construction, and services were the main supply- side growth motors, contributing 1.5 and 4.7%, respectively. Construction and retail trade indices increased by 21.2% and 11.9%, respectively, compared with 2021.

Projections remained positive despite these negative trends, however, with the new economic strategy under the National Development Plan centred on the objective of doubling gdp per capita by 2030, primarily by scaling up wide-reaching structural reforms to diversify the production base and enable more-inclusive economic growth, particularly in relation to gender equity and the reduction of rural socioeconomic disenfranchisement. Finally, in terms of overall economic performance, there were slight improvements in several key areas, including the Global Gender Gap Index, the total unemployment rate, and the Corruption Perceptions Index.

Despite encouraging macroeconomic trends overall, no significant gains were made in terms of the average standard of living. The extreme poverty incidence (the proportion of people living on less than € 2 a day) increased to 12.3%, 0.6 percentage points higher than in 2021. The expansion of services and industry (6.7% and 8.2% real growth, respectively), which employed 46.7% and 14.1% of the labour force respectively, was a driver of poverty reduction. However, the World Bank judged that the increase in food prices and other key consumer goods offset the effects of economic growth on poverty.

As a summary of these socioeconomic trends, Côte d’Ivoire’s Human Development Index bounced back from a discouraging score of 0.516 in 2021 to 0.550, an improvement of eight places to a ranking of 159th out of 191 countries surveyed, leap- frogging countries such as Senegal, Nigeria, and Rwanda. That said, the ranking was still far from the Ouattara administration’s stated ambition of Côte d’Ivoire becoming a middle-income country by 2030.

Cocoa production rebounded after a slight decline in 2021/22 from the record- setting 2020/21 season to a projected 2.230 m metric tonnes for the 2022/23 harvest.

Crude oil production continued its gradual decrease from the previous two years, falling from 9.9 m barrels in 2021 to around 9.4 m barrels in 2022. Recent offshore finds of crude oil and gas were still not being exploited but registered as significant potential gains for the coming years. Ivorian cashew production reached a record-setting 1 m tonnes, confirming its world-leading position. However, concerns were raised about changing consumer attitudes on the global market, as demand seemed to wane.

In addition to the downwards regional and global economic trends, the increase in public spending, especially on infrastructure, as well as the positive trends in the construction sector, may have also been linked to the costly preparations for hosting the 2024 African Cup of Nations football championship, scheduled to begin in January 2024. Originally scheduled to take place during June and July 2023, the championships were rescheduled to early 2024 due to the high risks of flooding during the country’s rainy season. Large-scale construction was underway throughout the year in the five cities selected to host championship matches (Abidjan and San Pedro in the south, Yamoussoukro and Bouaké in the centre, and Korhogo in the north), with some venues requiring minor renovations and others the completely new construction of stadiums, training grounds, visitors’ facilities, and roads. The costs for this extensive construction were estimated at more than € 750 m per venue, or a total of a staggering € 3.5 bn.

As with prestige infrastructure projects along the coast in recent years, such as the new ports in San Pedro and Abidjan, President Ouattara was said to be personally invested in the preparations for the African Cup of Nations, in collaboration with the national organising committee for the project, headed by former minister of sports François Amichia. State investment in the championships was not limited to the construction of sports infrastructure but also included extensive road repairs, with reconstruction of the 350-km coastal main road connecting Abidjan and San Pedro estimated at a cost of around € 450 m; the expansion of the 95-kilomtre highway between Yamoussoukro and Bouaké estimated to cost approximately € 262 m; and a new turnpike at the outskirts of Abidjan estimated at a cost of around € 110 m. Although some of these infrastructural investments had been underway well before the plans to host the African Cup of Nations, and were likely to lead to more all-encompassing improvements, for example in the transportation of cocoa, cashew nuts, and other key agricultural products, the strain on the Ivorian economy was considerable and the long-term benefits for ordinary Ivorians were less immediate.