Ivorians are heading to polls this Saturday in one of the most watched elections in the West Africa region.
Incumbent Alassane Ouattara, 83, is the overwhelming favourite, seeking to secure a fourth term, a task facilitated by the absence of several key opposition figures.
Nearly 8.7 million voters are expected to elect their president this Saturday in Côte d'Ivoire, a country of 38 million inhabitants and the most dynamic economy of the West Africa region.
Five candidates are in the running, including the incumbent, Alassane Ouattara, who is seeking a fourth term.
Ouattara, 83, has been in power since 2011, and since then the country began reasserting itself as an African economic powerhouse, being the world's top cocoa producer. A legacy that he hasn't missed mentioning in his campaign.
"We want a knockout blow," his allies say, as they hope for a win from the first round, avoiding a run-off. Facing him, four challengers, mostly outsiders, apart from Simone Gbagbo, the former first lady, ex-wife of Laurent Gbagbo.
Five candidates, one powerhouse
Facing Ouattara is first the former trade minister Jean-Louis Billon, the youngest candidate at 60, claiming to represent a "new generation" of Ivorian politicians.
The agribusinessman looks to rally voices by promising more jobs for the youth, the employed and those left out by the current rapid growth.
His campaign has been the most dynamic among the four, with rallies all over the country.
Two women are also competing: the aforementioned former first lady Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, 76, who is looking to gather support from the faithful followers of her former husband, and the centrist Henriette Lagou, a moderate who already stood in 2015 -- taking less than one percent then.
The fifth candidate, civil engineer and independent Pan-African Ahoua Don Mello, does not conceal his Russian sympathies and claims to represent 'leftist' ideas, as the Gbagbos.
But these four candidates lack the support of a formal party, while the main politicians on the Ivorian scene have been excluded from the race.
Former president and Ouattara's rival Laurent Gbagbo has been barred from standing, as well as the former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam, head of one of the main political parties, PDCI.
The constitutional council eliminated them on the grounds they had been removed from the electoral roll, Thiam because nationality-related legal issues stemming from him acquiring French citizenship and Gbagbo for a criminal conviction.
Their absence added to a tense political climate, with their supporters calling for protests the authorities have strictly banned, citing a risk to public safety.
None of the four candidates seeking to unseat Ouattara represents an established party, and they lack the logistical means compared to the ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), led by Ouattara.
Major security upscale
Some 44,000 security forces were deployed nationwide, which systematically quashed blockades or marches in several localities, especially former opposition strongholds in the south and west.
Three people died over the past few weeks, two protesters and a gendarme, in the south and centre-west. And more than 700 people were arrested, some for acts of "terrorism," according to state prosecutor Oumar Braman Kone.
Around 30 were sentenced to a three-year prison term for disturbing public order were also handed down.
The authorities acknowledged a tightening of the pre-poll screws by saying they did not want to permit "chaos" to arise nor see a repeat of the unrest of 2020, when 85 people died during the election.
"The state is taking preventive security measures to avoid electoral violence. But the best way to have peaceful polls is to organise inclusive elections," political analyst Geoffroy Kouao told AFP.
Ouattara himself came to power after a bloody crisis following the 2010-2011 contest, which cost more than 3,000 lives in clashes between his supporters and those of Gbagbo, who ruled for a decade before him.
All eyes on turnout
A crucial issue this Saturday is the turnout, while many voters complain they don't have real choices.
In the north, most people, who are of the Malinke ethnicity, strongly back Ouattara. His RHDP is hoping to get up to 90 percent of the votes and a strong participation rate.
Southern and western regions, home to groups historically pro-PDCI or pro-Gbagbo, might avoid the polls altogether, due to the lack of voting instructions from their leader.
"Since the end of the one-party rule and the rise of multipartism, the political debate in Côte d'Ivoire has begun to tribalise," historian Hyacinthe Bley told me, from the Félix Houphouët Boigny University, in Cocody Abidjan.
This led to tensions, even coups, like in 1999, and a civil war after the 2020 elections.
"The country is still divided between the north and the south", Bley continued, " and no one forgot the violence of the war of 2010-11. The presidential election of 2015 was more peaceful, but the reconciliation is still not complete."
"Nothing will make me vote, my candidate isn't on the list and none of them represents my ideas," complained Emile Kouadio, in the popular district of Yopougon in Abidjan, which remains overwhelmingly pro-Gbagbo.
According to Bley, people in Côte d'Ivoire still vote for a person rather than a party. So the four challengers appear very weak compared to Ouattara.
"The absence of the two main opponents will demobilise a significant portion of the electorate, and so far we haven't seen a significant shift behind a candidate," said William Assanvo, a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS).
The government is highlighting its record of several years of strong economic growth in a country rich in mineral resources, which became an oil and gas producer in the 2020s, as well as a security situation largely under control, despite jihadist threats on its borders with Burkina Faso and Mali.
Critics however underline that the growth only benefits a small portion of the population and came with a deep increase in the cost of living.
What most people told me is however that they hoped for 2010-2011 violence never to repeat and the national reconciliation process to be deepened.
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