Since yesterday, the supporters of the Ivorian Popular Front have been jubilant, the opposition leaders Pascal Affi N’Guessan and Henri Konan Bédié are invigorated. The reason ? Former President of Côte d’Ivoire Laurent Gbagbo, who still lives in exile in Belgium, broke his silence after nine years. What is the scope of his message today just a few hours before the first round of the presidential election?
Laurent Gbagbo condemns the third term
The question deserves to be asked when many Ivorians fear new violence around the ballot. And there is no shortage of reasons for concern. Late last night, we learned that the convoy of the secretary general of the Ivorian presidency Patrick Achi, one of Alassane Ouattara’s campaign directors, had been strafed. near Agbaou (150 kilometers north of Abidjan), without any injuries.
President Alassane Ouattara is seeking a controversial third term in the face of opposition which has called for “civil disobedience”. For three months, violence and intercommunal clashes have left around thirty dead.
“What awaits us is disaster. That’s what I’m talking about. So that people know that I do not agree to go hand in hand with the disaster. We must discuss, ”said Laurent Gbagbo on TV5 Monde, from Belgium, where he is awaiting a possible appeal before the International Criminal Court (ICC), after his acquittal at first instance of crimes against humanity.
“Talk! Negotiate! Talk together! There is always time to do it […]. I am resolutely on the side of the opposition. I say, given my experience, that we must negotiate! Insisted the former president, aged 75.
Anger, “I understand it and I share it”. “Why do we want to do a third term? We have to respect what we write, what we say. […] If we write one thing and do another, we are witnessing what is happening today, ”he said of his former opponent, Alassane Ouattara.
The Ivorian Constitution only authorizes two presidential terms, but, according to Alassane Ouattara, the adoption of a new Constitution in 2016 has reset the counter to zero, which the opposition fiercely contests.
Laurent Gbagbo’s speech had been awaited for months by his supporters, who hope for his return to Côte d’Ivoire.
Laurent Gbagbo resolution in the opposition
“Since my arrest on April 11, 2011, I have not spoken, except during interrogation before the ICC. […] I was waiting to be in Ivory Coast before speaking […], but quarrels bring us into a pit. […] If I keep silent, it would not be responsible, so I decided to speak out, ”he explained.
Laurent Gbagbo also accused Mr. Ouattara of “lack of elegance” towards him by not providing him with a passport, but he stressed: “If I want to return home, I will return. […], but I don’t want to go in and provoke palaver. That’s why I didn’t come home. ”
About a hundred kilometers to the north, from Abidjan, the convoy of Patrick Achi, secretary general of the presidency, “was strafed by unknown people with automatic weapons near Agbaou where it had just held a meeting”.
“No one was hit. Mr. Achi is well, ”confirmed, less than 48 hours before the presidential election, a person close to him.
Patrick Achi is close to President Ouattara often cited as one of his potential dolphins.
Many Ivorians fear a new major crisis, ten years after the post-electoral crisis resulting from the 2010 presidential election which left 3,000 dead in this West African country of 25 million inhabitants, which has about sixty ethnicities.
Abidjan is empty
Sign of the prevailing feverishness, many Abidjanais were leaving the city. At a station in Adjamé (Abidjan district), a starting point for the interior of the country, dozens of people loaded bags, suitcases and backpacks onto the buses.
“I am traveling today compared to what happened last time [la crise de 2010-2011, NDLR]. I am scared. I prefer to go back to family ”in Yamoussoukro, Sandrine Dia Amoin told AFP.
The opposition, embodied by ex-president Henri Konan Bédié, 86, and Pascal Affi N’Guessan, 67, did not campaign. But the two men did not formally withdraw from the poll.
Ouattara, 78, and Bédié, 86, old rivals present on the Ivorian political scene for three decades, therefore face each other once again in a country where the average age is 19.
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