The municipal and regional elections on Saturday, September 2 in Côte d’Ivoire were shaping up to be a warm-up before the presidential election scheduled for 2025. The opportunity to assess the political climate of a country whose polls have often been tainted by the violence and to gauge the forces present, while all the main political parties were in the running. It was unsurprisingly the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP, in power) which largely won the two elections, marked by a participation of 36.18% for the municipal and 44.61% for the regional.
According to the compiled results of 30 regions (out of 31) and 199 communes (out of 201) that the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) announced on Sunday and Monday, President Alassane Ouattara’s party emerged victorious in 123 communes and 25 regions, i.e. in least 31 municipalities and seven regions more than in previous local elections in 2018, thus strengthening its hold on the country.
In opposition, the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), weakened by the death on August 1 of its president, former head of state Henri Konan Bédié, and the African Peoples’ Party-Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), of former President Laurent Gbagbo, who had joined forces in many localities, had to be content with 34 municipalities and four regions. The rest goes to independent candidates.
Opposition Divisions
Two years before the presidential election, the head of state, whose intentions for 2025 are still mysterious, took these two elections very seriously, launching many ministers and party executives into the race. The Prime Minister, Patrick Achi, won hands down (68.06% of the vote) in the Mé region (south-east), of which he has been the President of the Regional Council since 2013. The Minister for Promotion of youth, Mamadou Touré, meanwhile won in Haut-Sassandra (west) against the outgoing regional president, Alphonse Djédjé Mady (PDCI), who had allied himself with the PPA-CI. Victory also in Tchologo (north) for the Minister of Defense and brother of the President of the Republic, Téné Birahima Ouattara, who had no opponent in this region won by the RHDP.
Unsurprisingly, the ruling party thus retains a large majority of its northern strongholds. The Minister of National Education, Mariatou Koné, won in Boundiali, while the Minister of Agriculture, Kobenan Kouassi Adjoumani, won in Gontougo. The RHDP also maintains its control over important localities, such as the seaside resort of Grand-Bassam and Bouaké, the country’s second city.
But it is in Abidjan that the victory is most notable. In Yopougon, the most populous municipality in Côte d’Ivoire (with 1.5 million inhabitants) and the most observed in these elections, the President of the National Assembly won with 44% of the vote. Adama Bictogo was able to take advantage of the divisions of the opposition, majority on the accumulation of the votes of his two candidates, Michel Gbagbo, the son of the ex-president, for the PPA-CI, and Augustin Dia Houphouët for the PDCI. The RHDP has also retained the municipalities of Abobo (with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Kandia Camara), Treichville and Koumassi.
In the economic capital, the PDCI managed to keep the town halls of the strategic Plateau, the heart of business and political life, of the bourgeois Cocody, where Jean-Marc Yacé was renewed, of the industrial Marcory and of Port-Bouët , where, as in the Plateau, the loser, from the ruling party, was quick to denounce “massive fraud”. The former single party has also established itself in its traditional strongholds in the Akan country: the capital Yamoussoukro, Daoukro, stronghold of the late Henri Konan Bédié, and the region of Iffou. He also acquired, thanks to his alliance with the PPA-CI, the city of Toulépleu (west).
The surprise came from San Pedro (southwest), the second richest city in the country thanks to the largest cocoa export port in the world, where the independent candidate Nakaridja Kéita Cissé preceded the outgoing RHDP mayor. As five years ago, the second “force” of the country has no party: the independents have won 41 municipalities and one region. Most often from one of the three major parties, from which they did not obtain the nomination, the 365 independent candidates in this double ballot had to fight a little more than the others to win. The RHDP and the PDCI had forbidden them to use the image of the party during their campaign and temporarily excluded dissidents (19 on the side of the RHDP, 26 on the side of the PDCI). But as after every election, the victors should be courted to fall into line.
No fatalities or serious injuries
Laurent Gbagbo’s party, on the other hand, is the big loser in these elections, the first since the former president’s return to Côte d’Ivoire in June 2021, after his acquittal by the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the creation of his new party, the PPA-CI, in October of the same year. Laurent Gbagbo had widely denounced, in recent months, biased elections due to irregularities on the electoral lists, while inviting his supporters to go to the polls. The message, scrambled, clearly did not find its electorate.
“Overall, the opposition lacked preparation,” notes political scientist Arsène Brice Bado. The RHDP was present in all the municipalities, while the PDCI was absent in about twenty municipalities and the PPA-CI in about forty. But she also lacked strategy. In Yopougon in particular, if the two parties had joined forces, they would certainly have won. Now is the time for them to introspect. »
For now, the losers of Yopougon, Augustin Dia Houphouët and Michel Gbagbo, have chosen to reject the results and denounced an “electoral hold-up” due to the late opening of certain polling stations, technical malfunctions and threat.
Twenty localities, according to the NGO Aube nouvelle, which monitored the vote, were affected by violence against people or equipment. Unlike previous local elections or the 2020 presidential election, where 85 people were killed, there were no deaths or serious injuries. The CEI thus congratulated itself that these elections were “the best organized and where there were the fewest clashes”. Its president, Ibrahime Kuibiert, on Monday called on the candidates to respect the results and “not to indulge in violence”.
