PARTIES IN FN-HELD TERRITORIES ORIENTED AROUND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ABIDJAN 000492

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/24/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM IV
SUBJECT: PARTIES IN FN-HELD TERRITORIES ORIENTED AROUND
ETHNICITY

REF: ABIDJAN 459

Classified By: EconChief EMassinga, Reasons 1.4 (b,d)


1. Summary. DCM, Econ Chief and Political Specialist
traveled July 15-18 to Seguela and Bouake in Forces
Nouvelles-held territory. During the course of the trip,
Emboffs met with representatives of the country's three major
political parties (FPI, RDR, PDCI). Discussions with party
representatives demonstrated the degree to which the
presidential election scheduled for November 30 will swing on
questions of ethnicity, vice ideological platforms. The RDR
is focused on resisting efforts by the President's faction to
disenfranchise northern voters while attempting to deflect
characterization of its leader, Alassane Ouattara, as a
"northern" candidate. The PDCI is hunkering down to protect
the interests of the Baoule people in the Bouake region. The
FPI for its part is attempting to nibble into the PDCI's
Baoule stronghold and aims for modest gains elsewhere for its
core constituency. Visit followed on the heels of President
Gbagbo's first visit to Seguela since the outbreak of
hostilities in 2002. End Summary.


2. (C) During a recent visit to Forces Nouvelles-controlled
Bouake and Seguela to assess recent internecine fighting
within the group's armed wing, Emboffs met with
representatives of the three main political parties: the
President's FPI party, former President Bedie's PDCI party,
and former Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara's RDR party.
While party representatives presented their regional
electoral strategies and platforms, in every meeting, the
representatives betrayed a heavy ethnic bias in their
electoral orientation.

RDR
--------------

3. (C) The RDR representatives focused intently on the
question of identification, particularly the President's July
14 proposal, made in his trip to Seguela, to distribute
identification cards after the upcoming presidential
election. Echoing the critique of the President's
identification trial balloon leveled by the Forces Nouvelles
(septel),the Bouake representative said he had "waited 10
years to achieve this objective (identification),and will
not be denied at this point" and that his militants would be
very upset if the Forces Nouvelles caved after more than six
years of struggle for political equality and enfranchisement
among Cote d'Ivoire's ethnic groups.


4. (C) The RDR representative in Seguela, who is the Mayor
of the city, organized a meeting with party stalwarts,
including leaders of the youth and women's wings, along with
representatives of agricultural producers and teachers.
Universally, party leaders and rank and file expressed
similar anxieties to those expressed by their Bouake
counterpart regarding identification and security of the
upcoming elections, openly fearing attempts by the FPI to
manipulate the vote using the armed forces and gendarmerie.


5. (C) The RDR's Bouake representative said the wife of the
party leader was scheduled to visit the North during the week
of August 4, but that party leader Alassane Ouattara himself
would not come at his militants' request. The representative
averred that if Ouattara is to mount a genuine national
campaign, he needs to avoid the appearance of being a
"northern candidate." While admitting that in the mostly
Baoule villages around Bouake, there is still a strong sense
that Ouattara is a "foreigner," the RDR representative said
that the RDR maintains a strong edge in Bouake proper. A
study done by the party showed that of the 30,000 RDR
sympathizers in the region who wanted and needed
identification papers, 15,000 obtained documentation
("jugements suppletifs") in the audiences foraines process, a
result he intimated is roughly the experience throughout
Forces Nouvelles territory.

FPI
--------------

6. (C) The FPI's operatives in Bouake were a sharp, capable
group. Meeting Emboffs in a Catholic school, they recounted
how they had fled the region and only returned in the wake of
the Flame of Peace ceremony held in Bouake on June 30, 2007.
Heartened by the return of state administration, the FPI
reported steering clear of security issues altogether in
Forces Nouvelles-held territory. They claim 11,653 militants
in the Bouake region, compared to 6,000 before the outbreak
of hostilities in 2002, and report carrying out an intensive
door-to-door campaign, eschewing mass rallies as the primary
means to turn out the vote. The FPI sees an opportunity in
Bouake: before the crisis, the region was a PDCI stronghold,
but now they claim that village chiefs and even FAFN soldiers

ABIDJAN 00000492 002 OF 002


are becoming FPI militants.


7. (C) In Seguela, the FPI is happy with the President's
recent July 14 visit, but remains visibly traumatized,
claiming that in the 2002 hostilities they were targeted "a
la Rwanda" by those they identify as "RDR stalwarts" and that
FPI militants (presumably Bete and other southern ethnic
groups) were scattered, they and their offices attacked, and
some even killed. An FPI representative vividly recalled the
2000 "betrayal" by the PDCI administration of the city when
the RDR-aligned gendarmerie prevented them from voting in the
presidential election, causing, in their view, the FPI's loss
in the region.


8. (C) The FPI in the Seguela region today has the modest
goal of gaining control of the general council of the
surrounding region (vice the mayoralty of the city proper),
admitting the RDR's dominance among "Ouattara supporters"
whom they described as "all foreigners, Guineans, Malians and
Burkinabe." Both in Bouake and Seguela, the FPI stalwarts
rely on the party's rhetoric of 2000 - free schooling,
empowerment of women, universal heath care, administrative
decentralization, and ending local winner-take-all politics,
and are now adding the promise to clean up corruption at the
national level, pointing to recent arrests in the cocoa
sector as proof of the President's determination.

PDCI
--------------

9. (C) In Bouake, party representatives noted many militants
have not yet returned due to the security situation. They
complained bitterly about the failure to receive compensation
for houses seized by the FN. They noted that while an FN-led
committee is gradually sorting out who owns what homes in
Bouake and is removing squatters who have taken over homes
during the six years of FN administration, actual payments
for damages is not forthcoming. PDCI representatives see
this failure as a substantial barrier to their militants'
return to the region.


10. (C) The key Bouake representative complained about
corruption in the FPI government, and expressed the fear that
local people (i.e. Baoule) will be menaced by "foreigners"
during elections without a strong United Nations Operation in
Cote d'Ivoire (UNOCI) security presence. Claiming to be the
historically dominant party in the Bouake region, he claimed
"tens of thousands of activists," and said PDCI strength is
in the countryside. While he described the PDCI as "the
party of the producer" and noted that it "understands
capitalism," his counterpart in Seguela admitted that
ideologically, not much separates the three major parties.


11. (C) Comment. Ethnicity has historically played a central
role in Ivoirian politics. Discussions with interlocutors
from the major political parties in the Forces
Nouvelles-controlled northern part of the country reveal that
this has not changed. To the contrary, these interlocutors
admitted, knowingly or not, that electoral strategy turns
tightly on ethnic prejudices. The sole attempt to cross
ethnic lines appears to be the FPI strategy to woo rural
Baoule in the Bouake region, echoing its attempts throughout
the PDCI heartland to peel off enough voters to position the
President as the logical Baoule alternative to a "foreign"
president (i.e., RDR President Alassane Ouattara).
Ouattara's ultra-low profile in his northern base (he has not
visited the north since 2006) seems to be a calculated move
to try to take ethnicity, long his Achilles heel, off the
table. Overall, it appears that ethnic identification will
play a dominate role in the upcoming presidential election.
End Comment.
AKUETTEH