Stalemate and tension continue to characterize the situation in Cote d’Ivoire, where incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo has been unyielding in holding power despite a near-universal belief that his opponent, Alassane Ouattara, won the 28 November election. Gbagbo has access to and the loyalty of men with guns, who are working to isolate and seal off Ouattara’s supporters with police and even UN forces unable to respond effectively. Violence is likely to continue, and some even fear a resumption of civil war.
And so there is talk of the implementation of a unity government, a process that is almost certain to reward Gbagbo’s truculence. One need look no further than Kenya and Zimbabwe, where the perceived legitimate winners of elections were coerced into taking second-tier positions as “Prime Minister” while the real power remained in the hands of the Presidents they had defeated. In the words of John Campbell, the Ralph Bunche senior fellow for Africa policy studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, the former US Ambassador to Nigeria, and the author of Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink:
In the face of [Gbagbo’s] intransigence, there is talk of “power-sharing” between the two presidents. International mediators should be wary of such a proposal. Zimbabwe and Kenya power-sharing arrangements, in effect, enabled defeated incumbent heads of state to hang on to power even though they had lost the election. While in Zimbabwe and Kenya power-sharing ended violence in the short term, it has not resolved the underlying causes. Power-sharing would likely have a similar outcome in the Ivory Coast.
Gbagbo, of course, knows this. And as with the case of Mugabe in Zimbabwe in particular, Gbagbo knows that time is his friend, and that delay establishes facts on the ground that are unlikely to be changed short of the unpalatable option of the use of force by foreign troops or the more palatable negotiations that keep him in proximity to power. And Ouattara likely realizes that his choice may come down to waging war that serves no one or taking a fraction of a loaf or none at all. Thus power sharing is likely to happen not because it is just — it most certainly is not — but because it may end up being the least worst option short of a change of heart from Gbagbo that is not about to happen.
