The Ivorian maquis, these street restaurants, only agree to broadcast three types of television programs: music videos, football matches and the Miss Côte d’Ivoire pageant. For this last event, spectators who have not had the chance or the means to get a place at the Ivoire hotel in Abidjan, gather with family or friends in bars and restaurants. No question of missing a beat: it’s the biggest audience of the year for the public channel RTI… and an inexhaustible source of jokes.

“How is she standing?” Looks like she’s coming to talk! “, tackles a young spectator in one of the bars of the Allocodrome de Cocody. Physique, make-up, hairstyle, outfit, gait… All the candidates take turns on the grill. And on social media, it’s even worse. “It’s braising night!” (meaning criticism or gossip), we joke on Twitter. Difficult since 2021 to match in popularity Olivia Yacé, elected Miss Côte d’Ivoire that year and last year became second runner-up to Miss World.

Spectators at the Hôtel Ivoire, filmed in the background by RTI cameras, also take it for their rank: whoever sleeps, grimaces or wears an outfit deemed to be in bad taste is ruthlessly pinned down. Senior dignitaries are no exception. “They have come to choose their next mistress,” quips a tradeswoman from the maquis, hands planted on her hips and frowning.

Since its creation in 1956, the competition has had the sulphurous reputation of providing a showcase for placing superb young women at the disposal of the country’s powerful. Dating arranged? Pimping? The accusations reached their climax when Linda Delon, elected Miss Côte d’Ivoire in 2000, married Aboudramane Sangaré, a minister of former President Laurent Gbagbo, thirty-six years her senior.

Identity tensions

Candidate for the preselections in 2016, the web editor Sandra Plebou, unconditional of the competition, recognizes it without blinking: “Preparing for the competition is expensive. To get funding, some sponsors ask for things in return. No one has forgotten the interview of Danielle Boué, finalist in 2022, in the program “Les Femmes d’ici”, on the New Ivorian Channel (NCI). The beauty of Tonkpi explained with a laugh that the patrons “come quietly to tell you that they want to help you, and it’s after that they declare themselves and say to you: ‘I supported you there, you don’t want to come massage me?” “.

It also happens that the competition reveals identity tensions. After her election, many Internet users targeted Tara Gueye, Miss Côte d’Ivoire 2019, whose father is Senegalese. She received a deluge of xenophobic comments on social media denouncing the victory of a “foreigner” and raising the specter of “ivoirité”, a variant of “national preference” which had caused the marginalization of immigrants from West Africa and communities in northern Côte d’Ivoire. Since the defeat of Jemima Gbato, who arrived first runner-up in 2018, the legend has run that no mixed race will ever win the crown.

Saturday July 1, it was Mylène Djihony, from N’Zi (center), who won the 2023 edition, wiping the traditional tear of emotion under the cheers. Like her predecessors, she has the immense and slender silhouette of a supermodel, a long smooth wig and a speech whose Ivorian accent has been erased. As per pageant rules, she was never married or a mother.

These criteria, designed to stick to Western standards, are regularly criticized and alternative beauty contests have been created. Lala Soumahoro thus won in 2022 the most popular of them, Miss Awoulaba (a Baoulé term which designates a beautiful woman in the flesh), for the commune of Plateau. Awoulaba beauty queens must weigh between 70 and 120 kg, sport large buttocks and breasts, and have at least one child. There is one constant, however: the merciless criticism of the spectators. Whatever the silhouette of the candidates, it is always the “braising” that wins.