VZCZCXRO2233
RR RUEHPA
DE RUEHAB #0255 0671522
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 081522Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY ABIDJAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 1062
INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA 1297
RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA 0278
RUEPGBA/CDR USEUCOM INTEL VAIHINGEN GE//ECJ2/ECJ3/ECJ5//

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABIDJAN 000255 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
KINSHASA PASS TO BRAZZAVILLE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/07/2016 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KPKO ASEC IV
SUBJECT: ALASSANE OUATTARA RESTRUCTURES THE RDR 
 
REF: COTE D'IVOIRE: FORMER PRIME MINISTER ALASSANE 
 
     OUATTARA RESTRUCTURES HIS PARTY 
 
Classified By: POLOFF Phaedra Gwyn for reasons 1.4 b&d 
 
¶1.  (U) On March 4-5, presidential candidate and former Prime 
Minister Alassane Ouattara's political party, the RDR (Rally 
of Democratic Republicans), met at the UN-protected Golf 
Hotel in Abidjan, to restructure the party and increase the 
number of leadership positions at the top.  More than 700 
members turned out for the gathering.  While pro-government 
newspapers are reporting that former Minister of Justice 
Henriette Diabate has been pushed aside, in fact she has not. 
 She remains the Secretary General of RDR and the 
highest-ranking and most influential woman in the opposition. 
 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Since the crisis began in September 2002, RDR 
members have been targeted and sometimes killed by 
pro-government death squads.  In Abidjan, the RDR 
headquarters was burned down shortly after the crisis began, 
and up until two months ago when the building was renovated, 
members were meeting in the ruins.  In the rebel-controlled 
zone, RDR leaders have been expected to rally their members, 
but they are operating under difficult conditions with few 
jobs in the area and uncertain water and electricity 
supplies.  Meanwhile, Ouattara has been living in Paris.  In 
addition, those RDR leaders that Ouattara has been able to 
secure ministerial positions for, such as Henriette Diabate, 
who was Minister of Justice in the previous government, and 
Deputy Secretary General Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who remains 
Minister of Agriculture, are protected by the UN and less 
accessible to their members. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) In an effort to pacify the rank and file and 
address their complaints about power being overly 
concentrated at the top, at the March 4-5 meeting Ouattara 
announced the creation of over a dozen new positions in the 
second tier of the party.  Ouattara also gave the Deputy 
Chief-of-Staff (Chef de Cabinet) position to Sidi Toure, a 
member of the RDR youth wing.  This went some way toward 
pleasing RDR youth, as a way for them to have more influence 
in the party, but Toure is not a member of the youth group's 
leadership and indeed he has not been much involved in the 
group's activities.  While papers are speculating that the 
Chief-of-Staff will also be someone from the youth wing, 
Karamoko Yayoro, president of the RDR Youth, told us this was 
still uncertain. 
 
¶3.  (U) Ouattara also announced that the RDR will hold a 
seminar in the coming weeks to unveil the party's political 
platform.  He recently asked local RDR leaders to submit a 
report on the challenges confronting their individual 
communities, so that they can consider these issues as they 
finalize the party's broader platform.  Ouattara also 
announced that the local and provincial party secretaries 
would now be elected instead of appointed. 
 
¶4. (C) COMMENT:  Ouattara is trying to spread the power out 
more among the rank and file members and reinvigorate the RDR 
after the difficult and violent previous three years during 
which he was in exile.  It is a positive step towards 
internal democracy in the party that he has increased the 
number of elected officials and intends to offer a political 
platform, a rare occurrence in Ivoirian politics.  It is also 
a positive step for him to give more power to the RDR youth, 
given the demographically large numbers of youth in the 
country and the dynamic, albeit negative, role that 
pro-government youth play in the political scene.  END 
COMMENT. 
 
Hooks