Last year’s presidential elections in Côte d’Ivoire ended in a violent standoff between the incumbent, Laurent Gbagbo, and the internationally recognized winner of the vote, Alassane Ouattara. During the five-month crisis, which ended with Gbagbo’s arrest and Ouattara’s inauguration, more than 3,000 Ivorians died. We spoke with Charles Djrekpo, NDI resident director, about NDI efforts to help the reconciliation process, and how women and youth leaders are the key to a more a peaceful future for Côte d’Ivoire.

What is life like in Côte d’Ivoire now, after the crisis?

The protests put the country through violence, enormous casualties and heavy looting of property. That crisis is now behind us. The country is recovering slowly. But people are still afraid; they are still living with very heavy stress. Many of them are hiding now — they’re afraid to come out in public. Security is not completely assured because there are still so many guns in the hands of people who are not the police.

People still have a lot of hate, a lot of fear, and to stop all that, the government has set up the Commission for Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation. The leader of that commission is Charles Konan Banny, and he has a good idea of what he has to do. I met with him along with Chris Fomunyoh [NDI regional director for Central and West Africa programs] and he said he’s planning a commission composed of representatives of women’s and youth organizations, political parties, representatives from the main geographic regions of the country, religious leaders and the diaspora — the Ivorians working out of the country. The committee will most likely address problems like youth unemployment, reconstruction and punishment for those who have committed crimes.

What work was NDI doing before the election?

We brought political parties together to agree on a code of conduct. Côte d’Ivoire’s political party code of conduct is one of the best in the African region. It was signed April 24, 2008. Since then, we have gone through the country to distribute and raise awareness of the contents of the code.

In seven regions, we organized what we call political party platforms. They were a kind of roundtable of political parties — opposition and governmental — and we have asked them to sit together and discuss the problems their region is facing. Over time, they became friendly with each other and collaborated more closely to find solutions to the region’s problems. We’re hoping to extend this program to the other 12 regions where this program doesn’t yet exist.

We have also worked with women’s wings of political parties. We worked with the leaders of the women’s wing of each party to make public announcements asking Ivorians not to resort to violence but to go and vote on election day.

What has NDI been doing in the country since the electoral crisis?

We started by calling on youth leaders to come together. Some were very afraid to come from their hiding place and they asked us to protect them. That’s what we did, by sending NDI marked vehicles and drivers to their hiding places and ensuring them safe travels. Large parties, like Gbagbo’s party, the FPI were represented. The youth wing leader of Ouattara’s party, the RDR, was there. And the leader of the Federation of Students, a kind of trade union of students, was there. I think everyone was very glad to see that these youngsters who had been hating each other accepted our invitation and came to this meeting.

Our purpose was not to discuss something in particular. Our purpose was to let them realize they can meet, that they are citizens of the same country, that there is no reason to kill each other and that they can shake hands once again. And that’s what they did. They ate together, drank together, and they exchanged very good declarations. The discussion was about “what did you live during that period?” People were talking about the difficulties they had during the crisis, how they had been looted, how they lost some relatives. They said, “I’m glad to see you alive, have you lost somebody from your family, have you lost your house?”

They have asked us to plan another meeting as quickly as possible so that they can go further in the exchange and see what they can do to rebuild their country together.

We are also planning to meet with the leaders of women’s wings of political parties and civil society organizations in June.

What is the purpose of these meetings?

I think they will help mitigate violence. We can’t guarantee 100 percent success. We have to endeavor and do and act so that we can mitigate the violence. I think the coming legislative elections, planned for the end of November or early December, will probably be violent if we don’t act to mitigate violence.

Why did you choose to target youth and women leaders?

These are the people who can inform the groups they represent, and I think that’s the best way to spread ideas we have discussed in the meeting. More than 60 percent of Ivorians are under 30 years old. And you know, they were the ones who were encouraged to fight by the political parties; they were the fighters. They have to understand that what they have done is bad and has destroyed their own interests, their own job opportunities. And if they realize through the conversation that it’s against their own interest, I think in the future, they will not be manipulated so easily to fight each other.

We want the women’s leaders to meet because they are still fearful of each other. Our objective is to make them come out, to meet and exchange kind words and see that they have been friendly in the past, that they used to work together. They were adversaries in the past but not enemies, and they have to continue not being enemies, but political adversaries.

Our purpose is to bring them to see each other, discuss and know that it’s better to continue working together.

Related:

• Chris Fomunyoh discusses the political stalemate in Côte d'Ivoire on the PBS Newshour»
• Côte d’Ivoire: NDI helps political parties agree to code of conduct»
• Youth academy empowers tomorrow’s political leaders in Rwanda»

Pictured above: Charles Djrekpo

Published June 28, 2011