Cote d’Ivoire: Next Mutiny Could Topple President Ouattara
Could West Africa’s third-largest economy about to be plunged into political crisis? Sebastian Spio-Garbrah, Chief Frontier Markets Analyst at DaMina Advisors, investigates the uncertainty facing the Cote d’ Ivoire’s future…
After half a dozen separate mutinies in Cote d’Ivoire since the beginning of the year, with almost all major branches of the military services – regular army, gendarmes and elite republican guards having now tasted the sweet nectar of the financial payoffs that such illegal actions elicit – the next mutiny may very well see 75-year old term limited President Alassane Ouattara, who himself too power after a violent army mutiny toppled. While grievances over cuts to military expenditures are the proximate cause of the mutinies, the deeper structural causes are the internal political disagreements within Ouattara’s camp over his presidential succession. Two large outside players are believed to also be stoking the embers of rebellion in the military. Former Burkinabe President Compaore, a key player in Ivoirian domestic politics, in exile in Ivory Coast, favors Soro and is weary of any other potential successors to Ouattara. Supporters of former President Laurent Gbagbo, currently standing trial at The Hague are also desirous to see Ouattara toppled from power. As cocoa prices have fallen and the country’s macroeconomic fundamentals have deteriorated, cuts to public expenditures have exacerbated factional political tensions.
Ouattara whose term ends in 2020 has no chosen successor. A recent constitutional change and cabinet reshuffle has effectively sidelined the most powerful contender for the presidency, 45-year old former prime minister, insurrectionist rebel leader and current Speaker of the National Assembly Guillaume Soro. Angry ex-rebel military factions aligned with Soro within the army remain the key linchpins for the ongoing mutinies. They are prepared to eventually stage a coup to topple Ouattara if it becomes clear Soro’s path to power is completely blocked. Soro's rebel forces, who hail mostly from the Muslim north and who effectively helped install Ouattara as president in 2011 following a decade of civil war, vow not to countenance any attempt to install a the current Vice President Kablan Duncan as a successor to Ouattara.
The mutinies signal that Soro, a former rebel leader still holds strong sway over large sections of the Ivoirian military. Historically, the Speaker of the Ivoirian National Assembly based in Yamoussoukro was second in line to the presidency. However a new constitutional change pushed by Ouattara has installed a vice president as the second in line, – effectively demoting Soro in the line of presidential succession to 3rd.
Jan 6, 2017 – Disgruntled army troops seize control of Ivory Coast's second city Bouake
Jan 7, 2017 - Troops fire at government offices in Bouake, Abidjan, several other towns
Jan 8, 2017 – President Ouattara fires army, gendarmerie and police chiefs
Jan 13, 2017 – Government reaches deal with mutinying solders
Jan 17-18, 2017 - 4 soldiers are killed in capital Yamoussoukro as new protests erupt, six towns
Feb 7-9, 2017 - Elite troops from presidential guard mutiny over bonus. Shoot up Adiake barracks, 90 kilometers (56 miles) east of Abidjan.
May 11, 2017 - A spokesman representing the 8,400 troops who mutinied in January apologies on TV
May 11-12, 2017 – New mutiny. Shots fired in Abidjan, Bouake and Korogho.
May 15, 2017 – Another mutiny this at military camps in Akouedo and in Bouake.
Cote d’Ivoire is the world’s largest cocoa exporter and West Africa’s third largest economy behind Nigeria and Ghana. After almost a decade of partition and civil war in the 1990s, the country may yet plunge downwards if the current political disequilibrium and risks around President Ouattara’s succession are not clarified.
DaMina Advisors is a preeminent Africa-focused independent frontier markets risk research, due diligence and Africa M&A transactions consulting and strategic advisory firm.
