On Christmas Eve 1999, those inhabitants of Côte d’Ivoire who were tuned into the local station Radio Nostalgie were informed by General Robert Gueï, sometime chief of defence staff, that "... as of now, President Henri Konan Bédié is no longer the president of the republic." Saying that he was speaking on behalf of a group of young mutineers, Gueï announced that they would shortly form a ‘committee of national salvation’. He added that the government, parliament, constitutional council and supreme court had been dissolved.¹

On the night of 22/23 December, six non-commissioned officers of the Para-Commando Rapid Deployment Force (FIRPAC) seized control of the arsenal at the military camp at Akouédo, on the north-eastern outskirts of Abidjan. The six were veterans of the United Nations mission to the Central African Republic (MINURCA) and had spent eleven months in Bangul as part of the deployment to stabilise the situation in the CAR where periodic mutinies had threatened to overthrow the government of President Ange-Felix Patassé.²

The Ivorian mutineers subsequently explained that their unhappiness was the result of poor living conditions for other ranks in the army, that ethnicity was now a factor in determining promotions and, more particularly, that their pay was in arrears and that their officers had appropriated large proportions of their special UN allowances. The contagion of the mutiny evidently spread quickly through the camp and at three o’clock on the morning of the 23rd, the initial six set off as a delegation to present their grievances to the army chief, General Maurice Tauthuis. The mission was unsuccessful and one of the mutineers was wounded in an exchange of fire outside the general’s house.³

The remaining five returned to Akouédo to find the camp in a state of near insurrection. A number of soldiers commandeered vehicles and headed into Abidjan, discharging automatic rifles and looting the shops and petrol stations in the capital. The reaction of President Bédié to these alarming events was extraordinary. Brushing aside the concerns of some of his advisors, he announced his intention of flying to his home town of Daoukro to celebrate Christmas there. As matters continued to develop during the day, his advisors pressed him to return to the capital, but he did so reluctantly, refusing to share their sense of alarm.⁴

At about one o’clock in the afternoon, some of the mutineers seized control of the buildings housing the state-run television and radio stations, forcing them to go off the air, though foreign and local stations continued to broadcast. There was total confusion in the city, as people wondered whether this was a pay mutiny or a full-scale coup. By five in the afternoon, the centre of Abidjan was deserted, and public transport had ceased to operate.⁵

Bédié still refused to meet the mutineers’ representatives, instead delegating this task to certain senior ministers. The latter were unable to placate the soldiers with a series of vague undertakings, and the demand for a meeting with the president was repeated. In the meantime, Colonel Mathias Doué, an officer popular with the ranks and only recently returned from an attaché posting in the Far East, was charged with maintaining contact with the soldiers.⁶

Several ministers were still trying to impress the gravity of the situation upon the president, suggesting that it might be necessary to dismiss some of the army command. Bédié remained reluctant, but eventually agreed that he would install Doué as chief of the army once circumstances permitted. He also agreed to meet the mutineers’ representatives the following morning.⁷ The defence minister now informed foreign journalists that the mutineers would not be suppressed by other troops, but that the protests would be allowed to run out of steam, and that the president would then meet with them to discuss their grievances, which were described as purely economic.⁸

This was hardly sufficient to stay the hand of the soldiers, and at 2 o’clock on the morning of 24 December, they seized control of the international airport. An hour later, they had blocked access to the two bridges linking the northern and southern parts of Abidjan.⁹

The president was now irritated rather than frightened. His humour was not improved by a number of telephone calls during the night, including one from President Matthieu Kérékou of Benin, who sought to persuade him that the television images being relayed by foreign stations showed more than a simple pay mutiny. The soldiers involved were ready to risk facing a firing squad, he said, and were prepared to do anything. This well-meant advice was ill-received, for it touched upon an issue that had become increasingly sensitive over the past year: the refusal to countenance any interference in matters concerning national sovereignty.¹⁰

A little before five in the morning, there was another call from General Gueï. He explained that he had been at his home town of Gouessesso in the Bainkouma region when he received a telephone message that his wife had been taken hostage by the mutineers. He was therefore returning to the capital and, by his own account, urged Bédié to take the demands of the soldiers seriously.¹¹ Bédié agreed to bring forward his meeting with the mutineers to 7:30, when he received four soldiers led by a sergeant who had belonged to the guard of former prime minister, Allasane Dramane Ouattara. After listening to their grievances, the president assured them that they would go unpunished, provided that they returned to their posts immediately. He also promised to make a personal study of their complaints. Although further discussions were offered, this meeting appears to have been remarkably brief.¹²

As Francis Kpatindé remarks in his detailed account of these events, by now it was too late for grudging and partial concessions, for the putsch had gathered irresistible momentum.¹³

At the same time as Bédié was meeting the delegation, other soldiers had entered Radio Nostalgie, a station whose head was close to Ouattara, and interrupted programmes to demand an end to the looting. A few hours later, several armed soldiers returned to the radio station saying that General Gueï, as their spokesperson, had an announcement to make. It was at this stage that the parameters of the military challenge became apparent. Gueï’s broadcast, claiming the overthrow of the Bédié regime, was greeted by outpourings of public joy on the streets of Abidjan.¹⁴ Soldiers now proceeded to the prison to release the opposition politicians incarcerated there, though several other common criminals also made good their escape during the ensuing confusion.¹⁵

Bédié was apparently unaware of Gueï’s announcement, and assured Radio France Internationale that he had no intention of relinquishing power, but would continue the dialogue about military grievances.¹⁶ The French government evidently was considering its options in this uncertain situation, with its Foreign Ministry condemning the assault on the institutions of the West African republic, and calling for the immediate restoration of order and security in Abidjan. Particularly ominous was the subtext emanating from Paris, of concern for the fate of some 20 000 French nationals resident in Côte d’Ivoire, which some interpreted as a precursor to a French military intervention, using the 43rd Marine Infantry, based in the south of Abidjan at Port-Bouet.¹⁷

An announcement by the newly established Committee of Public Salvation that it was to enforce a curfew gave rise to one final act of defiance by the embattled president who responded to the broadcast by calling on loyalist forces, civilian and military, to resist.¹⁸

By now Gueï, while continuing to insist that he had come forward only at the request of the young mutineers, began to take on an even more prominent profile, offering to assume the role of head of state if that was required.¹⁹ He also warned France that any attempt to reverse the situation would meet with firm resistance. In any event, Paris demurred, with socialist prime minister, Lionel Jospin, and Gaullist president, Jacques Chirac concurring that the days of intervention to support unpopular and recalcitrant regimes were something of the past, whatever the objections of hardline Gaullists.²⁰

Colonel Doué informed a news conference on the 25th that Gueï would head the new National Committee of Public Salvation.²¹

The announcement of the members of the Committee was greeted with interest. Apart from General Gueï, the membership consisted of General Lassana Palenfo, who had served as security minister during Ouattara’s premiership in the early 1990s; General Abdoulaye Coulibaly, an officer who had been Houphouët-Boigny’s personal pilot, and had subsequently commanded the air force under Ouattara; Colonel Mathias Doué; Naval Captain Djikalou St Cyr; Naval Lieutenant Sama Henri Cesar; Chief Petty Officer Zohin Honore; Staff-Sergeant Boka Yapi Laurent, the only one of the original six insurrectionists named to the Committee; and Major Mouassi Grena.²² The association of the senior members of the Committee with Allasane Ouattara was lost on nobody, yet too close an identification in public would neither benefit the ruling junta, which needed the temporary legitimisation of a national base of poplar support, nor Ouattara himself, who needed to emerge as an eventual presidential candidate in his own right.²³ By now, all other force commanders had declared their loyalty to the junta, dashing any remaining hope of a counter-coup that would restore Bédié, or, indeed, encourage any outside powers to do so.²⁴

France’s reaction was interesting: with matters apparently still in the balance, the Foreign Ministry in Paris issued a statement condemning the assault on the institutions of the Ivorian republic and calling for the immediate restoration of order and security.²⁵ Other European countries also voiced concern over developments.²⁶ Before Christmas Eve was over, however, there were indications that the French government had interceded with Gueï to allow Bédié, his family and his immediate entourage to leave the country.²⁷ The following day, Bédié and his family were ensconced at the French military base adjacent to the city’s airport and Gueï announced that the deposed head of state was free to leave Côte d’Ivoire.²⁸

Many of the calls were for a rapid restoration of democratic constitutional rule, without stipulating the reinstatement of Bédié.²⁹ Some of the African reactions were less equivocal, however. Nigeria and South Africa initially insisted on the return to power of the elected president, though these demands became more muted as the weeks passed, and the new regime consolidated itself.

As Gueï set about cementing the foundations of his new regime, he questioned the accuracy of the term ‘coup d’état’ as a description of what had taken place. He emphasised that he sought only to create the conditions necessary to install a true democracy and enable the holding of free and fair elections.³⁰ Apart from signalling that the army’s intervention had either been far more ambitious than first realised, or that its objectives had been broadened considerably, this was an early indication of Gueï’s recognition that coupists faced much heavier odds than in the past in terms of the international arena.

Was the Ivorian coup going to follow the example recently set by the soldiers of Niger? Understandable though the reaction of civilian heads of government to any military interference with the body politic is, these events, unresolved as they remain, may give pause for thought to many recognised heads of state experiencing problems with their legitimacy.

As shall be shown, the events of the past year gave plenty of reasons for anxiety about the stability of Côte d’Ivoire in 2000. Yet, of all the African countries least likely to experience a military coup d’état, Côte d’Ivoire had long featured high on most people’s lists. Not only was the army relatively small — about 7 500 strong — but many observers believed that the army would be deterred from direct intervention in the political arena by the countervailing presence of the gendarmerie and, more particularly, the presence of a sizeable French garrison at Port-Bouet, on the southern edge of the capital. Thus, since independence, of all the states of West Africa, the most significant in regional terms to Paris – Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Cameroon and Gabon – apparently had enjoyed an externally guaranteed immunity, since the former colonial power was unlikely to tolerate the military overthrow of incumbent regimes deemed important to the maintenance of France’s regional influence.³¹

Several developments had changed the international and local political context, however, in ways evidently unnoticed by President Bédié and his advisors. First among these was the inability of Bédié himself to fill the political space left by his predecessor, Felix Houphouët-Boigny. This in itself was scarcely surprising, for Houphouët-Boigny was perhaps the ablest politician of all the founding fathers of independent Africa. He dominated the political scene in Francophone West Africa for almost five decades, including his presidency of Côte d’Ivoire from independence in 1960 until his death at the age of 88 in 1993. Houphouët-Boigny’s close relationship with France began with his election to the French National Assembly in 1945. Between 1956 and 1959, he served as a cabinet minister in Paris. For the remainder of his life, he remained a valued confidant of French presidents and Prime ministers on matters African.³²

Houphouët-Boigny’s individual political style has been described as a benevolent, paternalistic authoritarianism, derived from a chiefly tradition and with the emphasis on accommodation and co-option rather than repression. He emphasised the primacy of economic growth and development over liberal political freedoms. While resources lasted, this approach was reasonably successful in terms of its own objectives.³³

In the decade preceding independence, the colonial administration of Côte d’Ivoire developed a system of agriculture based upon indigenous plantations.³⁴ An extensive transport infrastructure was created and between 1950 and 1965, annual economic growth averaged nine per cent, and exports increased fourfold. Nevertheless, this ‘economic miracle’ of state capitalism came at a price, albeit one to be paid by future generations:

The plantation economy was based on the availability of a low-paid immigrant workforce, numbering as many as a million, most of whom had entered the country from Upper Volta (Burkina Faso) when both territories were part of French West Africa.



The excessive emphasis on export crops threatened domestic food production and led to the importation of non-traditional food imports. The rapid exploitation of timber resources also threatened the ecological balance of whole districts.



Industrialisation and mining were neglected in the pre-independence years leaving the country dangerously exposed to fluctuations in commodity prices and deteriorating terms of trade.



There was an excessive dependence on foreign capital which, thanks to the open exchange market of the CFA franc, could be withdrawn in times of recession.³⁵

All of this was yet to become obvious in the 1960s and 1970s, when there were abundant economic resources to fuel the political machine and keep the patronage system thriving.³⁶

By the late 1970s, however, the flaws in the plan were beginning to become apparent. A boom in commodity prices yielded unprecedented revenue to the state, which embarked on a programme of infrastructural expansion supported by massive foreign borrowing. In 1978, cocoa and coffee prices began a steep and protracted decline, leaving the government deeply in debt and struggling to make ends meet. Between 1979 and 1984, employment in the modern sector contracted by thirty per cent, and gross domestic product declined by more than 1,5 per cent per year. By 1987, the country was forced to declare a moratorium on interest payments to its principal foreign creditors.³⁷

Houphouët-Boigny’s reaction to the crisis was characteristically shrewd: he facilitated a constitutional revision allowing for popular participation in politics for the first time since independence, through competitive elections to the national assembly, albeit within the context of the single-party system. Rather than being seen as a concession to pressure for political liberalisation, this innovation allowed the president to deflect popular discontent towards corrupt officials and members of the party ‘old guard’. More than eighty per cent of the sitting national assembly was voted out in 1980, and the new incumbents of political office owed their positions to the president. In 1985, the process was repeated, and 65 per cent of the assembly was ousted.³⁸

The introduction of intraparty competition raised the issue of home-based politics for the first time, including feelings between ‘locals’ and ‘strangers’ reflecting the latent tensions created by the government’s encouragement of internal migration to develop the plantation economy. This was aggravated by the movement back to the land of thousands of urbanites, trying to alleviate the effects of the economic downturn. Back in their ‘home areas’ many of these people found that the best agricultural land was already overcrowded.³⁹

Once begun, the process of political ‘liberalisation’ found more radical proponents. In 1982, Laurent Gbagbo, a university lecturer who had already been detained and imprisoned in 1969 and from 1971-1973, published a tract calling for an alternative form of democracy in Côte d’Ivoire. He then prudently left for six years of exile in France, during which time he set up the Front populaire ivorien (FPI) as an opposition party.⁴⁰

The early years of Houphouët-Boigny’s rule had seen their share of upheavals, of which the nature remain somewhat enigmatic. In 1963, a series of events led to the arrest and secret trial of between 120 and 200 people, thirteen of whom were subsequently sentenced to death. This marked the consolidation of presidential power, and also revealed something of Houphouët-Boigny’s political style. None of the death sentences were carried out, and he was later heard to describe the perpetrators half affectionately as "my little perverts."⁴¹

There were also violent student protests in 1968 and a revolt in the Bete region in 1973, both of which were easily contained.⁴² University student demonstrations continued to be a feature of the 1970s, but only in the late 1980s did protests become heavily politicised. Austerity measures arising from Côte d’Ivoire’s acceptance of a structural adjustment programme in early 1990 were abandoned, following protests by students, workers and, ominously, soldiers. In what looks with hindsight almost like a dress rehearsal for the events of 1999, conscripts demanding pay increases occupied the capital’s international airport, invaded the business district and commandeered motor vehicles.⁴³ Apart from retreating on the issue of structural adjustment, Houphouët-Boigny realised the need for further concessions to ease the pressure on his regime and evade the fashionable demand for a national conference now being voiced in some quarters. At the end of April, the president announced a return to the multiparty system as laid down in the constitution, and agreed to run in a competitive election for the first time since independence.⁴⁴

Elections were held at the end of October 1990. Official obstruction, inexperience, harassment and the fragmentation of the opposition presented Houphouët-Boigny with a comfortable victory in the presidential race, with 82 per cent of the vote to Gbagbo’s eighteen. In the national assembly, the ruling Parti démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) secured 163 of the 175 seats, although only 61 incumbents were returned. In that same year, Houphouët-Boigny — now in his mid-eighties, in failing health and eager to distance himself from the onerous complexities implicit in the daily management of state affairs — decreed the establishment of the post of prime minister, to which he appointed a 48-year old US-trained economist, Dr Alassane Dramane Ouattara, then serving as governor of the West African central bank (BCEAO).⁴⁵

Ouattara’s principal task was to resume the unpopular austerity programmes and to force through structural measures that, by their very nature, would expose him and his administration to a barrage of criticism. Throughout 1991 and 1992, the government met turbulence in the universities and among the urban poor with a mixture of firmness and conciliation. There were also further incidents of unrest in the armed forces. In July 1991, General Gueï, who had been promoted a year earlier to head the army, announced that a number of soldiers had been detained as they were planning to stage a mutiny.⁴⁶ In April 1993, members of the presidential guard, stationed at Yamoussoukro, staged a brief mutiny over pay and conditions.⁴⁷

The violent suppression of protests began to attract unfavourable attention from abroad, though this was mitigated by the country’s recovery as an attractive haven for foreign investment. A deal was also struck with the opposition, many of whose leaders had been jailed in February 1992 following a demonstration which had become a riot. A general amnesty for politically-related crimes and for those connected to the maintenance of public order was announced in August 1992, also protecting the security forces, including Gueï, from brutality charges.⁴⁸

By mid-1993, Houphouët-Boigny’s health had begun its final decline, and he was admitted to a Paris hospital in that June, suffering from prostate cancer. He returned to Côte d’Ivoire only in November and died on 7 December. The constitution had been modified in 1990, ostensibly to provide for a smooth succession in the event of Houphouët-Boigny’s death in office. The post of vice-president, created in 1980, had been abolished in 1985 without ever having been filled. The 1990 amendment stipulated that the president would be succeeded by the president of the national assembly, who was to hold office until the next scheduled election.⁴⁹

Within hours of the announcement of Houphouët-Boigny’s death, the president of the national assembly, Henri Konan Bédié, had laid claim to the succession, over the protests of Ouattara, who wanted the supreme court to assume temporary charge, pending a new election. This latter position evidently enjoyed the support of General Gueï and the army. Bédié’s interpretation of the constitution was upheld two days later by the supreme court, and Ouattara resigned to take up an appointment in Washington as deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).⁵⁰

France’s relations with its African partners were already undergoing changes by 1993. The French prime minister, Balladur, announced in September that Paris would make further structural adjustment aid conditional upon the signing of agreements with the World Bank and the IMF, signalling that France was unwilling to bear the burdens of Francophone Africa’s economic problems alone. President Mitterand and Balladur made use of the occasion of Houphouët-Boigny’s funeral to explain that the CFA franc would be devalued by fifty per cent. Côte d’Ivoire, with a more robust export sector than most of its poorer neighbours, was able to ride out the political backlash of devaluation relatively well.⁵¹ Ouattara’s structural reforms and the windfall benefits of devaluation provided Bédié and the PDCI with an excellent platform from which to ward off challengers during the presidential campaign, due in 1995. This position was reinforced by the adoption of an electoral code requiring that both parents of a presidential candidate should be of Ivorian nationality, and that the candidate should have lived in the country for the past five years. This was a scantily disguised attempt to exclude Ouattara from the lists.⁵²

This trend in Ivorian politics marked a sharp departure from Houphouët-Boigny’s style and philosophy. He had long advocated a very broad concept of dual nationality and only local opposition made it impossible to write this into law. He had still made it possible for foreign residents to vote, a privilege of which they were now deprived. The new policy, cloaked as it was in the pseudo-philosophical trappings of Ivorité, constituted a potentially grave threat to the communal peace in a country where as many as thirty per cent of the population were of foreign origin. In addition, the PDCI began to play the dangerous game of stimulating ethnic and religious tensions, attempting to prevent an alliance between opposition elements in the Moslem north and the Catholic south.⁵³ Nonetheless, a united opposition front took to the streets to protest against the new electoral code. A breakaway group from the PDCI had established the Rassemblement des républicains (RDR) in 1994 and, in mid-1995, asked Ouattara to stand as its presidential candidate. The government remained obdurate in its refusal to revise the law, and Ouattara and the RDR boycotted the presidential elections, as did Gbagbo and the FPI. As a consequence, Bédié secured the presidency, winning 96 per cent of the votes in a much diminished turnout against the head of a small left-wing party, Francis Wodié.⁵⁴ In the parliamentary elections of November, the PDCI retained 147 of the 175 seats, fighting off the challenge from the RDR and the FPI.⁵⁵

On the eve of the polls, in a move that now appears doubly significant, Bédié dismissed Gueï as chief of defence staff for refusing to deploy troops against demonstrators during the turbulence leading up to the elections.⁵⁶ There were also rumours of a coup plot.⁵⁷

In general, however, Bédié could reflect on his position at the end of 1995 with some satisfaction. He had co-opted some of those into his cabinet whom he most suspected of disloyalty, his principal political opponent had taken up a post overseas, his party had won convincingly enough at the parliamentary election to eliminate the bad taste left by a lopsided presidential contest, and the French minister of co-operation had assured him that "France will be at your side, Mr President, for the long period that lies ahead of you."⁵⁸

The economy, too, was thriving, at least in the macro-economic terms most appealing to the IMF. Côte d’Ivoire’s implementation of the three-year structural adjustment and reform programmes of 1994-1996 was deemed a success: economic recovery, especially in the export sector, was sustained, rapid growth resumed, and inflation was reduced to single digit figures.⁵⁹

There were underlying worries, however, despite a significant rise in per capita GDP. The IMF noted the fragility of the public finance sector, the need for an environment more conducive to private sector growth, and the urgency of further efforts to reduce poverty and improve access to basic services. Most ominous was the high level of Côte d’Ivoire’s debt, especially in the context of reduced international financial assistance, both bilateral and multilateral. By the end of 1996, the country’s total debt stock amounted to US $19.5 billion, of which US $16.2 billion was public debt. Merely servicing this debt amounted to an equivalent of 25 per cent of the value of exports and 52 per cent of government revenue. It was therefore essential that the government pursue prudent fiscal policies that would earn it substantial relief under the highly indebted poor countries (HIPC) programme.⁶⁰ This constituted a fatal conundrum for a regime increasingly committed to obstructing change and attempting to reverse the effects of some of the gains made by pluralist democrats.⁶¹ The irony was that it was unlikely that austerity measures alone would satisfy the IMF while key issues of governance and corruption remained undressed. In the event, the Bédié administration managed to make the worst of a bad job.

In March 1998, the government had secured an agreement with the IMF for an enhanced structural adjustment package of US $348 million, following tough negotiations in which the IMF and the World Bank insisted on the liberalisation of the cocoa and coffee sectors. By September 1998, there were difficulties, as the IMF withheld its six-monthly tranche on worries about the slow pace of liberalisation and privatisation, the lack of fiscal transparency and other questions concerning corruption. In particular, a sum of US $220 million could not be accounted for in the records of Caistab, the parastatal agricultural marketing and stabilisation fund. The Ivorian authorities tried, unconvincingly, to persuade the IMF that this was a ‘technical problem’. It now appeared that the earliest the delayed tranche could be expected, was April 1999, which was to prove wildly optimistic.⁶²

By the beginning of 1999, the agricultural sector was in uproar. The world prices of the country’s principal agricultural products, which comprised 75 per cent of exports by value, had begun to slump, the 1999 budget had to be cut by five per cent, and in the midst of all this uncertainty, Caistab was reformed. Over the next few months, the coffee and cocoa farmers’ safety net was whisked away.⁶³ Whatever the justification for replacing the marketing and stabilisation organisation, 1999 provided the worst possible conditions in which to undertake such an enterprise. At precisely the time when world prices for cocoa were reaching a seven-year low, farmgate prices were being set by the market rather than the state, a situation barely intelligible to a largely illiterate farming population after all these years. Even the international agencies were compelled to admit that it would probably be at least three years before small-scale plantation owners could organise adequate co-operative structures to replace the state network. Throughout the year, farmers either refused to sell their produce, occasionally burning stocks as a protest, or smuggled them across the border into Ghana, where higher prices might still be obtained. In any event, the consequences for the country’s balance of payments and tax collection were catastrophic.⁶⁴

The desperation of the government’s position and the consequent sense of frustration manifested themselves in a series of angry public exchanges about the way in which the IMF was handling its relations with Côte d’Ivoire. The finance minister admitted that differences existed about the structural adjustment programme, but added that he suspected that political considerations were taking precedence over technical aspects. This reflected a growing conviction in government circles that Ouattara was using his position as deputy managing director at the IMF to make life difficult for the Bédié administration in the run-up to the elections due in 2000. A few days later, the president added his voice to the complaint, urging the IMF to respect Ivorian sovereignty, only to stimulate an angry rebuke from the IMF, which dismissed the allegations as groundless and inadmissible.⁶⁵ Both parties subsequently tried to play down the rift, Abidjan realising full well that IMF assistance was vital to any prospect for an HIPC deal in 2001.⁶⁶

Towards the end of June, another disaster struck: an audit by the European Union showed that as much as US $33 million of its aid funding to Coté d’Ivoire for 1992-1997 had been misappropriated.⁶⁷ Eventually, the government had to promise to repay the embezzled funds, three ministers were sacked, and eighteen civil servants and three businessmen put on trial. But the damage to the administration’s public reputation was immeasurable and the worst fears of the IMF confirmed. In its July review, the IMF said that it was still not ready to resume disbursements under the 1998 agreement.⁶⁸ By November, prospects were no better, and Bédié’s exasperation once again manifested itself in a public condemnation of the imposition of structural adjustment programmes without due regard to domestic conditions.⁶⁹ Little did he suspect that, as far as he was concerned, such matters would be of little more than academic importance in just over a month’s time. Not satisfied with the magnitude of his, albeit partially flawed, electoral victory in 1995, Bédié took steps to guarantee the impregnability of his position. He did so in ways that actually contributed to undermine his hold on office and to alienate many of his erstwhile supporters overseas.

In 1998, for instance, he revised the constitution to provide for a presidential term of seven years instead of five. Limits on the number of presidential terms were removed. The amendments also included presidential powers to delay elections or the announcement of results in the event of serious trouble. There were plans to create a senate, one-third of whose members would be appointed by the president. The residence requirement for presidential candidates was extended from five to ten years, in addition to the existing conditions regarding Ivorian birth and parentage. The opposition boycotted the vote in the assembly and protestors took to the streets in an expression of solidarity against the reforms.⁷⁰

Foreign government and media attention and worries about the adverse effects of confrontational politics on investor confidence seem to have played a part in persuading Bédié to revert to the tried and trusted tactics of co-option towards the end of 1998. In December, the PDCI and Gbagbo’s FPI reached a partial agreement on ensuring democracy and good governance. The government also undertook to submit an amnesty law to the assembly to enable the release of those imprisoned for offences linked to the 1995 election. The accord provided details of party funding and provisions for the establishment of a national election commission.⁷¹ Though the accord sufficed for a while to separate Gbagbo from support for Ouattara’s right to contest the 2000 election, the failure to fulfil promises of a national electoral commission ultimately undermined any confidence in the government’s commitment to its undertakings.⁷²

Similar approaches were made in March 1999 towards the RDR, in talks concentrating on electoral rules and organisation. But by now Ouattara was issuing statements indicating that he intended to return to Côte d’Ivoire to press his right to contest the presidency, and the PDCI was unprepared to continue dialogue that would entertain such a possibility. By the beginning of May, the dialogue was dead.⁷³

The remainder of the year saw a steady deterioration in relations between the government and the opposition, against a background of recurrent student and labour unrest.⁷⁴ The RDR refused outright to retract its position on Ouattara’s leadership, saying publicly that he would become president of the party upon his retirement from the IMF in August.⁷⁵ From now until the fall of the government, the press recorded the grim pantomime of Ouattara’s attempts to prove his eligibility to stand as a presidential candidate, and the government’s persistent manoeuvrings to thwart this. The details do not have to be provided here, for events have rendered the argument redundant, but the struggle to prevent Ouattara’s candidacy and the absurd lengths to which Bédié was prepared to go on this issue went a considerable way in eroding the support he might have expected from foreign political allies in the final crisis.⁷⁶

The next few months witnessed a deepening cycle of public unrest, partly political, partly socio-economic in inspiration, and government threats and repression. In a final attempt to ease the situation on 18 September, Ouattara met for three hours with Bédié. Subsequent reports in the opposition press alleged that the president had tried to buy off his rival by offering him the premiership, with full powers. If the offer was indeed made, it was rejected, and Ouattara proceeded to meet Laurent Gbagbo later that day, following which the two opposition leaders announced that they were preparing a joint government programme, reviving the Republican Front of the 1995 campaign. Ouattara then left for Washington and Paris, after which the government again raised the stakes by issuing a warrant for his arrest on suspicion that he had forged the identity papers supporting his claim to Ivorian citizenship.⁷⁷

Ouattara now tried to engage the attention of other regional leaders to the dangers of the developing crisis, hoping that they would intercede with Bédié to moderate both the actions and inflammatory language of his government. Over the next two months, he met presidents Eyadema of Togo, Diouf of Senegal and Bongo of Gabon. He was joined on the Senegalese leg of his mission by Laurent Gbagbo.⁷⁸ These efforts and the expressions of concern emanating from other West African capitals met with a robust denunciation from Abidjan of efforts to interfere in the internal affairs of a sovereign state.⁷⁹

Perhaps the final defining moment came on 27 October in Abidjan, when RDR demonstrators protesting against the Ouattara arrest warrant clashed with police. Some violence and damage to property ensued, and the entire top leadership of the party was arrested. In terms of Ivorian law, political leaders could be charged with responsibility for the actions of their supporters in public rallies, and on 4 November, a number of RDR leaders went to trial. On 12 November, eleven of them received jail sentences and fines. Ouattara condemned these proceedings as a transparent attempt to cripple the RDR ahead of the elections. Gbagbo’s FPI confirmed the resolve of his party to hold to the alliance with the RDR. The French and US governments expressed their disquiet, and received the usual government rebuff.⁸⁰

Harassment of RDR politicians continued elsewhere in the country, and the party urged Ouattara to delay his planned return.⁸¹ By now, the international press was beginning to give serious attention to developments.⁸²

The renewal of the arrest warrant for Ouattara, and a presidential proclamation banning all street protests simply aggravated matters further.⁸³ Even now, the possibility of compromise seemed to exist, and when President Bédié addressed the national assembly on 22 December, he hinted at an amnesty for the RDR’s jailed leaders that would allow them to contest the election, though he dashed any hope of concessions about Ouattara’s candidacy, and insisted that the RDR respect the law and uphold public order. He also added a denunciation of foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs and took a sideswipe at the IMF and its draconian economic prescriptions.⁸⁴

That this was to offer too little, too late, became only too evident in the next two days. But that the overthrow occurred to the astonishment of many people throughout the world, as well as of Ivorians themselves, remains a fact. Were the signs clear enough that there was trouble afoot? Was the complacency of those with a vested interest in the stability of the country of such a nature that these signs were gladly ignored? What became clear, is that even the seemingly most peaceful parts of Africa — such as West Africa, with its established relationship with the former colonial power that even has forces garrisoned there — are prone to unrest, coups and conflict.

That the country’s new military rulers and the politicians they have co-opted face a daunting task is obvious. The removal of President Bédié has done nothing to change the fundamentals underlying Côte d’Ivoire’s current economic and financial crisis. Indeed, it could be argued that the IMF and the World Bank will be even more cautious before lending assistance to military-dominated government. Recently Gueï has responded to diplomatic pressure by promising elections by October 2000 and a return to civilian rule. He has been evasive in his answers to questions whether he intends to stand for office when that time comes. In the meantime, he will have to be careful in his handling of the delicate political egos in the wings, as well as having to keep a weathered eye on a still dissatisfied military. Other West African states will monitor his progress with interest and not a little anxiety.