One Village Votes: radio documentary

At the link above, you can download the mp3 file of my fifty-minute radio documentary about the elections and their aftermath. It is a personal account and focuses on the people from one rural community north of Korhogo, where I have spent time for the past thirty years. Some of the people in this account live in the village itself, which I call Kalikaha in the documentary. Others now live in Korhogo, Koumassi, and Abobo.

Kalikaha voted peacefully on November 28. Gbagbo's representatives signed the sworn statements. But the villagers' votes were thrown out.

Now as Ouattara and Gbagbo play chess over the country's financial assets, ordinary people once again suffer the consequences. I only wish it had a happy ending.

No winner, no loser, no results...

As Billy Billy sings, “Changement, Bloquage!” We are stuck at bloquage.

Before the first round of this election, the International Crisis Group warned that of all the possible run-off scenarios, the riskiest would be Gbagbo-Ouattara. In Abidjan, in Korhogo, and even here in the Midwestern US, in the first snow of the season, Ivorians and all of us who care about Ivory Coast are holding our breath…

“Surreal,” said the anchor on France 24 before she played the video of what happened yesterday at the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI). As the spokesman for the Independent Electoral Commission got ready to announce results in his mellifluous baritone, two pro-Gbagbo members of the commission stood up and protested the announcement. As the spokesman watched in disbelief and the cameras whirred, one grabbed the sheets and walked away with them, tearing them up as he went.

The deadline to announce results--midnight Wednesday--has passed. The French, the Americans, the EU, the UN--everyone is urging the immediate announcement of the results. Between the lines of diplomatic language, perhaps the real message is, "Man up, Gbagbo, and admit defeat!" His response was to extend the curfew until Monday morning.

Gbagbo’s party, the LMP, wants the votes from the north invalidated. The Carter Center, the European Union, and the African Union all had observers in the north and all have judged the election, although not ideal, sufficiently transparent. The representative of the UN concurs.

If you look at the numbers, it’s clear that unfortunate as the problematic incidents were, they could not have changed the outcome. The numbers are essentially the same as the first round, which everyone agrees went impeccably. In the Savanes region (departments of Korhogo, Boundiali, Ferkéssedougou, and Tengrela), Gbagbo received 19, 312 votes in the first round, 6.5% of the vote. In the second round, he received 21, 203 votes or 6.45% of the vote. His percentage went down slightly while Ouattara’s percentage rose from 85.9% to 93.5%. This makes sense because the percentage of invalidated ballots went down from 6.6% to 1.3%. Most of those votes (16,635), cast correctly in the second round, probably went to Ouattara. Ouattara also picked up the votes of those who voted in the first round for Bedié and the eleven other candidates. Nevertheless, despite the intimidation his party claims, Gbagbo gained 1891 votes in the second round.

The rebellion happened in large part because northerners resented being excluded from the political process. To invalidate their votes now would doom the peace process and take the country back to more years of division and instability.

Worn Out With Waiting

Worn out with waiting for the election results and disappointed that her candidate didn't win in the first round, Nawa Koné, a young widow and mother of two, sat listlessly Wednesday afternoon waiting for news.

She and her family were awakened in the middle of the night before the election when neighbors knocked on their door. Unless everyone got out of bed and bathed in cold water, the war would start again, they were told. Although the neighborhood has no running water, everyone in the area drew well water and did as they were told. They were afraid not to.

The Armchair Still Empty

There are lots of armchairs in the market in Korhogo but there is only one armchair that counts right now.

The Presidential Armchair.

Will someone sit down after the first round? Or will we go to the second round at the end of November?

The wait is driving everyone crazy and rumors are flying. Ado first round! Ado and Bedié second round! Ado and Gbagbo second round! Text messages and phone calls are zipping around the country as friends and relatives pass on their local results.

Some provisional results were read out last night by the spokesperson from the Independent Electoral Commission, but many departments and some heavily populated neighborhoods of Abidjan were not among them. Since eighty percent of people here support the RDR candidate, Alassane Ouattara, they are worried.

"We only have one thing on our minds!" said Natalie Coulibaly, who sells fruit in the market, "Since the day before yesterday. The results!"

The longer the wait, the more the suspicions mount. Here is what people say:

"If the party in power had won, we would have known by now. They are trying to block the announcement."

"The Independent Electoral Commission? Independent!?! They are dependent on the head of the government!"

"They will announce it at midnight when everyone is sleeping so there is less violence."

"We are counting on these elections to bring peace and for things to be normal again. Ten years of war is enough. If we have a new president, things will normalize."

"NO SECOND ROUND! It will give the troublemakers too much time to organize."

Felix Awantang, an observer from the American Embassy: "The people have spoken. Now it's time for us to listen."