POLITICS OF IDENTITY, ETHNICITY AND ELECTORAL VIOLENCE: QUIZZING THE ROOTS OF RECURRING POLITICAL CONFLICT IN COTE D’IVOIRE

This article examines the impact of ethnicity, religion and racial identity politics in recurring political violence during political transition in Cote d’Ivoire. In over two decades of one-party rule in Cote d’Ivoire, the country pursued unified identity related policies until the late 1993s, when multiparty system was introduced; the collapsed of Cocoa in the World market, and demise of Houphouet-Boigny. This paper thus scrutinizes stages in the level of violence overtime by focusing on identity politics, ethnicity and religion as reckoning forces in perennial violence during political transition in Cote d’Ivoire. Since the transition to multiparty democracy in the 1990s Cote d’Ivoire has never organized peaceful elections without fear of conflict and electoral violence. Authors depend on secondary source of method of data collection to garner facts from documentary evidence, while also adapted conflict theories, and satisfied method of analysis in discussing how ethno-religious identities have become a mechanism being utilize in Cote d’Ivoire to gaining political support. Hence, the key objective of this paper is to interrogate the role of identity politics in constant electoral violence at every political transition in Cote ‘Ivoire. This article found that economic imbalance of Ivorian state, weak political institutions, identity politics, which subsequently led to introduction of Ivoirite policy in late 1990s, and its resultant effects on non-Ivorians are critical foundation in recurrent political violence in Cote d’Ivoire. The cumulative effects have since remained what Cote d’Ivoire has been battling with more than two decades. The article thus concludes the need for Alassane Ouattara led government to put all machinery in motion toward peaceful transfer of power in 2025 Presidential election.