8 Responses

1. According to the Voice of America here in Africa the elections will be free and fair with excellent voter participation.

2. BBC Africa had some informative broadcasts in the last week, reporting from several regional power centers, such as Bouake. Available in podcast form for free (BBC Africa Today) if you can get it

3. Good French reportage over at L’Observateur Paalga…
   http://www.lobservateur.bf/spip.php?article15147

4. I’ve also been trying, without much success, to follow the lead-up to the election. The lack of news coverage is pretty sad. Even Africa Confidential has not had an article on Cote d’Ivoire since August.

5. I just wrote an analysis of various outcomes in the Ivorian elections at: http://hotelivory.wordpress.com/
   and
   http://hotelivory.wordpress.com/2010/04/06/more-politics/

6. It’s election time also in Tanzania and Zanzibar. “There are fears of rigging and ultimately violence during and after the election”; even though most of newspapers do not say anything about possible clashes in Tanzania and Zanzibar, some local people from Zanzibar left the island for fear of violence and repercussions. How much will be this “some”? Well, I don’t know, but it would be interesting to know.
   Just a news-link: http://allafrica.com/stories/201010250735.html

7. Presidential elections have been postponed so many times that people were not really confident they would finally take place, and I still believe so: tomorrow there is the first round but I am quite sure the second round will take a long time to happen – just like in neighbouring Guinea. One of the three main opponents will lose tomorrow – be it Gbagbo, (the President), Ouattara (the candidate “of the north” and by some believed to be behind the 2002 rebellion) or Bedie (of the historical PDCI party of former President Houphouet Boigny, was ousted by a coup and still claims his right to the presidency) but none of the three will easily concede defeat and there are many risks of violence, particularly in the West which is the most unstable area. The right to vote is strongly linked with nationality and identity, a very sensitive issue in a country where until recently up to 25% of the population were of foreign ascendant but up to 45% (if I remember correctly) of kids are not registered at birth and many people did not have documents. Some of the parties played their pre-campaign and campaign along ethnic and sometimes religious lines, “demonizing” the political opponents and the alleged foreigners who would support them. There are strong tensions among autochtones (people of a specific area), allochtones (people of another area of Côte d’Ivoire) and allogenes (people coming from neighbouring countries mainly Burkina Faso and Mali but also others) basically on land issues and these tensions get intertwined with the identity issue and the vote. Tomorrow it will probably be calm, real problems will start when – if ever – they announce the two candidates who will go to the second round.

8. A journalist named Pauline blogs from Abidjan here:

   http://nofoodforlazyman.blogspot.com/

   She writes short and engaging posts that are mainly anecdotes, and are always worth a read.