2023-11-17 13:22:05
This is a CBS column from The Iconoclast, the columnist writer.
Cbs The iconoclast, the writer columnist
Since his divorce in 2019 from the Ivorian president, Alassane Dramane Ouattara (ADO), after refusing to board the ship flying the flag RHDP (Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace) reunified, if there is a constancy in the political life of Guillaume Soro, former Prime Minister (PM) and President of the National Assembly (PAN) of Côte d’Ivoire, is indeed wandering.
The rest after this ad
And after having taken place inside the country through Soro’s incessant visits to ADO’s challengers, this political wandering became internationalized and facilitated in this way, by two prison sentences, one of which was life and accompanied by a warrant. international stoppage. Since then, Guillaume Soro has become homeless and forced into exile. France, Belgium, Turkey, Dubai, etc., these are some of the countries where he has had to “scramble” for years, before resolving to think about a probable return to the country where the legal sword of Damocles still hangs over his head.
« From today I end my exile », he announced on November 12, 2023, in a video published on social networks where he appears emaciated: washed head and neck, haggard look, diminished prominence of the shoulders, accelerated senility process, etc. Which completely convinces us that the former rebel leader is experiencing the pangs of exile marked by moral and psychological suffering linked to solitude or the absence of traditional African human warmth. “ It is painful for me to live far from my ancestral and native land in Africa », he said in the famous video.
Another factor, which could explain this poor form, is probably remorse linked to the bad calculation of being able to run in the presidential election at the end of October 2020 with the hope of winning the presidential chair following a renewal of the Electoral Commission , the Constitutional Council and the electoral register; perspectives which were quickly shattered with legal convictions, repression of the streets by those in power, etc. It is also not excluded that Soro is currently experiencing another type of remorse linked to the naivety of having believed in an alleged political promise according to which after the two mandates of ADO, it was up to him in 2020, the presidential chair. Nay!
Politics has its reasons that reason itself ignores. With the news marked by Soro’s announcement of the end of his exile, followed the day after his arrival in Niger where he was received in audience by the putschist general-president Tchiani on November 13, 2023, everything suggests that the announcement, on November 3, of the attempt to arrest him on the same day at Istanbul airport by the Abidjan regime, is window dressing and a real dramatization of his initiative to return to African land.
And in this play, Soro, who looks like a vaudeville character, is the only actor who plays with himself by banking on the card of victimization to attract the sympathy of especially African opinion. Selected pieces : ” Mr. Ouattara demanded from France my arrest and extradition”, “he insisted to the Belgian government that this country does not issue me any administrative document which would have allowed me to reside there legally », « receiving the credentials of the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates, he took the opportunity to demand my arrest and extradition to Ivory Coast », etc.
The story often stutters and sometimes takes oblique paths
Following Soro’s itinerary, we can affirm at the risk of being mistaken, that he wanted a destiny like Macky Sall who, after having served the regime of Abdoulaye Wade also as PM and PAN, was able to emancipate themselves from it before beating it in the 2012 presidential election thanks to the support of civil society and the political class. Unfortunately, Abidjan is not Dakar and ADO is not Wade.
As it turns out, the story often stutters and sometimes takes oblique paths to the straight one that one might have expected. This shows if Soro had a bad political reading in thinking that the storm of the Arab Spring which had stretched its tentacles as far as Ouagadougou and Dakar to sweep away Presidents Compaoré and Wade for having wanted yet another mandate too many, was always wrong. news and would not spare Abidjan. No matter, Soro will have demonstrated a political courage which is akin to both temerity and felony from which he is reaping the bitter dividends today.
In this case, we can however regret that Abidjan never followed the decision of the African Court of Human and People’s Rights ordering the suspension of the convictions pronounced against Soro to allow him to take part in the presidential election of October 2020. Nothing surprising in our tropics where the reigning princes in such circumstances thumb their noses at any decision going against their will, even if it comes from a supranational jurisdiction.
So, like the Katumbi soap opera which attracted the attention of observers of the Congolese political scene where the Kabila regime exerted pressure on judge Chantal Ramazani Wazuri to condemn his former ally Moïse Katumbi who had become an opponent and force him to exile in order to prevent him from participating in the presidential elections at the end of December 2018, Soro finds himself condemned to drink the chalice of his political ambitions through endless exile.
Ironically, it was on the same muddy paths of exile as ADO, who also experienced rough patches, even being thrown into the trunk of a car for his exfiltration to the French embassy under Gbagbo, walked before occupying the supreme office. As it turns out, the battle for power is merciless and truly fierce. And Soro could only expect these pears of political anxiety that he is currently swallowing and which pass with difficulty through his throat.
In short, Soro’s political wandering and poor form constitute the price for his political bravado to President ADO. Now that mass is said and the bitter moon continues between ADO and Soro after their political honeymoon, will the latter dare to follow his logic to the end of returning home by treading Ivorian soil at the risk of to be alpacated and passed under the caudine forks of Ivorian Justice? Or will he rather continue his wandering by continuing his exile in one of the countries of the Bamako-Ouaga-Niamey triumvirate whose relations with Abidjan are visibly execrable? The days to come will tell us. We’re licking our lips…
CBS The Iconoclast
The chronicler writer
advertisement
advertisement
#Soros #Wandering #Poor #Form #Price #Political #Bravado #CBS #Iconoclast