Tidjane Thiam conquering the West

The euphoria lasts only a short time and the Ivorian political dissensions, temporarily forgotten thanks to the victory of the Elephants in the African Cup of Nations (CAN), on February 11 in Abidjan, begin to resurface. The next major national meeting will be less festive than the football tournament which enchanted the country for a month: it will be the funeral of former president Henri Konan Bédié (1993-1999), who died on 1^er August 2023. In anticipation of the funeral of the “Sphinx”, Tidjane Thiam, his successor at the head of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), a former single party that has become the main opposition party, appointed, Monday February 19, a bloated organizing committee.

In the midst of restructuring the party apparatus, the former banker granted his pardon to the “undisciplined” of the PDCI, sanctioned for “attack on party unity” after running as independents in the September legislative elections. The measure can be seen as a desire for internal appeasement in the run-up to the presidential election, scheduled for the end of 2025. In this perspective, and even if he has still not officially declared himself, Tidjane Thiam is closing ranks around him and seeks to broaden his support base.

On the occasion of a first meeting of activists at the party headquarters on Wednesday in Abidjan, where a delegation from the west of the country came to greet his election, he publicly denounced the low number of Ivorians registered on the electoral lists. : 8 million, according to the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI). However, Côte d’Ivoire has nearly 30 million inhabitants, 12.5 million of whom are over 18 years old. “A real anomaly which explains many of the problems of our democracy », Judge Tidjane Thiam. Where have the remaining 4.5 million potential voters gone? Precisely in the western regions, he thinks he knows for whom “ the road to the palace [présidentiel] passes through the West.

Why the West? Firstly because they are the most populated regions. No less than 3 million inhabitants for the Montagnes district, followed by Sassandra-Marahoué and Bas-Sassandra (2.7 million each), then Lôh-Djiboua (2.1 million). Attracting these populations to the electoral lists and then to the polls, judges the president of the PDCI, would make it possible to provide the beginnings of a solution to the “ credibility problem » elections.

Voice tank

In front of the activists, Tidjane Thiam does the math: “ If, out of 8 million, we reach 50% participation, that’s 4 million voters at the polls. So the majority is a little over 2 million. With 2.1 million votes, we can rule a country of 30 million inhabitants! It’s not democratic. »

But above all, the West could well be a crucial reservoir of votes for the PDCI’s strategy of regaining power. “If you follow migratory movements in the country, resumes Tidjane Thiam, we can hypothesize that a large part of these voices would come from us. » In the subtext, it is the Baoulé electorate, of which the PDCI has been the magnet since its founding by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, which is targeted.

In the 1970s and 1980s, many members of this community in the center of the country indeed migrated towards the forested West to work on plantations, particularly those of cocoa. A rural population which would have remained supported by the PDCI, according to Tidjane Thiam, but a large part of which would never have been registered on the electoral register, or even in the civil registry.

This is not the first time that the state of the electoral lists has been the subject of criticism from the opposition. On the side of the African People’s Party-Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), Laurent Gbagbo’s chief of staff, Habiba Touré, accused the register in May 2023 of being “riddled with irregularities and fraudulent elements “, including minors, deceased people and duplicates. Cases which, according to her, “totally discredit the CEI”.

So many accusations which risk becoming recurrent as the electoral deadlines approach where the waltz between the three main parties should once again be replayed, the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP, in power), of President Alassane Ouattara, the PDCI, of Tidjane Thiam, and the PPA-CI, of Laurent Gbagbo. For the moment, none of these three personalities has announced their candidacy, but no one doubts their desire to solicit the vote of voters.