On October 25, millions of people in Côte d’Ivoire will vote in a presidential election that has been deeply marred by tensions and controversies. Since 2011, Côte d’Ivoire has been led by President Alassane Ouattara, now eighty-three years old, who has achieved notable economic gains and maintained relative security in a region experiencing growing terrorism threats, stubborn economic stagnation, and democratic backsliding. But Ouattara’s controversial decision to run for a third and now a fourth term—through highly criticized changes to constitutionally mandated presidential term limits—has contributed to a contentious election cycle that has seen opposition candidates barred from running and hundreds of people arrested and banned from protesting.

In a country with a history of contested elections turning bloody and politicians mobilizing voters along ethnic lines, the stakes could not be higher, says Francis Abugbilla, an international studies lecturer at the University of Washington who has studied postconflict reconciliation in Côte d’Ivoire. “Even though there is no conflict in Côte d’Ivoire right now,” Abugbilla says, “tensions are very, very high.” Ethnic and religious strains have lingered in Côte d’Ivoire since the early 2000s, when political competition and disputed election results sparked two wars that killed thousands of people and displaced over a million more. With support from The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, Abugbilla’s research examines why, in the time since, Côte d’Ivoire’s attempts at national truth and reconciliation have failed to deliver meaningful results. 

Beginning in the late 2010s, Abugbilla set out to use Côte d’Ivoire as a case study to examine how the adoption and implementation of multiple peacebuilding mechanisms can affect the success of reconciliation and social cohesion efforts in postconflict societies in Africa. His research was based on extensive fieldwork across the country and over one hundred interviews with current and former government officials and warlords, as well as victims, students, truth and reconciliation commissioners, and traditional leaders, a group that spanned the breadth of the nation’s political, ethnic, and religious divisions.

Abugbilla found that in the wake of Côte d’Ivoire’s two civil wars, the country adopted a holistic approach to peace using peacebuilding tools that had previously been used in postapartheid South Africa and following the Rwandan genocide. Some were forms of retributive justice, where perpetrators were punished for their crimes, while others modeled restorative justice, which prioritizes reconciliation between perpetrators, victims, and communities. While the concurrent use of these different forms of peace mechanisms had been criticized in previous research, Abugbilla found that in Côte d’Ivoire it was the implementation, rather than the model itself, that was the primary problem. “Based on the interviews, and also based on my archival research, I got to know that a lot of the different mechanisms [of that process] were flawed,” Abugbilla says.

Even though there is no conflict in Côte d’Ivoire right now, tensions are very, very high

One of the peacebuilding tools employed in postconflict Côte d’Ivoire was a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) like the one mounted in South Africa in 1995 to help the country move past hundreds of years of colonial rule and apartheid. Generally, truth commissions like this are used in the transition periods following conflicts in order to collect information from victims and perpetrators alike, investigate crimes in a public forum, and establish a collective truth about what occurred during the conflict. The offering of amnesty by South Africa’s truth commission, which was mediated by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, encouraged many White South Africans to publicly confess to atrocities they had committed under the apartheid regime. This decision not only enabled restorative justice but also paved the way for social healing and reconciliation.

In the Ivorian context, however, the TRC was faulty from the beginning. In 2010, a contested election between then–incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and Ouattara, the challenger and apparent winner in that race, led to the country’s second civil war. Ouattara ultimately became president with the help of France and the United Nations, successfully expelling Gbagbo from the country and sending him to trial before the International Criminal Court. Shortly after taking power, Ouattara set up a truth commission ostensibly tasked with investigating crimes committed over the preceding twenty years. However, Côte d’Ivoire’s commission was led by a close ally of President Ouattara. It was forever stained by the public perception that the commission was politically motivated and lacking in transparency. 

Another key difference was that unlike in South Africa, where amnesty was granted in advance of testimony, participants in Côte d’Ivoire were not offered amnesty until years later. Consequently, many people sat out the process—either because, as allies of the president, they were excused, or because as his opponents, they felt participation was not safe. Abugbilla argues the outcome of the truth commission was both incomplete and ineffective. 

Alongside the troubled Truth and Reconciliation Commission was another poorly implemented peacebuilding tool that functioned as a form of retributive justice: trials established to prosecute alleged perpetrators of crimes and atrocities. While all sides of both civil wars had committed crimes, the trials effectively only prosecuted the losing side, while enabling impunity in President Ouattara’s camp. The courts only convicted pro-Gbagbo perpetrators and exempted many pro-Gbagbo military officials from amnesty. In his field research and interviews, Abugbilla found that this contributed to the sense that the trials were being used as political tools to punish political foes rather than achieve justice for victims. 

In Abugbilla’s view, Côte d’Ivoire’s formal attempts at peace and reconciliation more than a decade ago were ultimately ineffective, because the peacebuilding tools used were either poorly or incompletely implemented. There has yet to be sincere dialogue between the government and the opposition since. “Too often, in the case of Côte d’Ivoire, reconciliation has been a political tool rather than a genuine attempt at national reconciliation,” he says. Consequently, political and ethnic grievances have continued to linger under the surface of Côte d’Ivoire’s economic and security progress.

Too often, in the case of Côte d’Ivoire, reconciliation has been a political tool rather than a genuine attempt at national reconciliation

“When six becomes nine, we shall see” was a common refrain from Gbagbo supporters that Abugbilla encountered in his field research. It suggested that the political opposition and its supporters viewed the mechanisms ostensibly conceived for peace as a future tool for vengeance once the seat of political power was flipped. Already, the lead-up to the latest presidential election has seen the return of the players that have fought it out in Côte d’Ivoire’s political scene, and on the battlefield, for decades—unscrupulously leveraging ethnic and religious cleavages in political conflicts. While the exclusion of opposition candidates, including former president Gbagbo and former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam, from the election has placed Ouattara in the likely position to win at the polls, it could also further erode attempts at political reconciliation and social cohesion. 

The unfinished business of Côte d’Ivoire’s failed peace and reconciliation mechanisms offers lessons for postconflict repair work in Africa and beyond at a time when scholars and practitioners alike are trying to understand how to achieve sustainable peace. “First, justice must be applied equitably across political affiliations to prevent further polarization,” says Abugbilla. Secondly, “The judiciary must operate independently and transparently to restore public confidence because a fair legal system will ensure trust and encourage broader participation in reconciliation efforts.” And finally, “Success depends on genuine political will.”

This article is based on research by 2021 HFG Emerging Scholar Francis Abugbilla, an international studies lecturer at the University of Washington. Abugbilla’s HFG-supported research is titled The Impact of Post-Conflict Peacebuilding Mechanisms on Reconciliations in Africa: A Case Study of Côte d’Ivoire.

This article was written by Robin Campbell, a writer and communications strategist based in Baltimore, Maryland. For more information about Campbell and his work, visit Catalyze LLC.