A Constitution does not belong to whoever holds power at the time: it is the nation’s common pact. It was in the name of this principle that the URD opposed, in 2016, the procedure chosen to give Côte d’Ivoire a new fundamental law.
June 2016: a question of method
On 27 June 2016, Danièle Boni-Claverie set out the URD’s position on the revision announced by the Head of State at a press conference. The party considered the timing ill-chosen, as national reconciliation was not complete, and called for the process to be postponed. Above all, it objected to a drafting process it saw as too closed: trade unions, farmers and students were left out.
Instead, the URD proposed entrusting the drafting to a constituent assembly or to a consultative commission involving all the nation’s driving forces, and giving priority to the structural and institutional reforms the country needed. For the party, it was up to citizens themselves to judge whether a new Republic was justified.
October 2016: at the front of the Refusal Front
On the eve of the referendum of 30 October 2016, the opposition, gathered in the Refusal Front and the No Coalition, called for a peaceful demonstration in Abidjan. On 28 October, Danièle Boni-Claverie, spokesperson of the Refusal Front, marched at the head of the procession. Near the Félix-Houphouët-Boigny stadium, the security forces dispersed the demonstrators with tear gas, accusing them of leaving the authorised route.
A requirement that remains
Ten years later, the same requirement inspires the URD’s proposal for a new electoral institution: the rules of the democratic game must be written with everyone, not imposed by a single camp.
