General Overview

Since the signing of the Ouagadougou Political Agreements (APO), the socio political life is dictated by the general elections. However, the first election which was slated for November 30, 2008 was postponed to November 29, 2009.

Obviously, this date would not hold as a result of the delays and the stages left to be covered before the first election, the presidential polls. Nevertheless, prospects for the elections were better as compared with the previous years.

The voters' register was handed over to the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) on November 11, 2009, for publication on November 16. It was made known that before that date the register could be consulted on the commission's web site.

The publication would possibly give rise to claims by petitioners over a period of one month before the preparation of the voters' ID cards.

The 20 candidates who filed their papers for the presidential election had already embarked on their campaign long before the official opening of the campaign.

President Laurent Gbagbo would be seeking to remain in power. The former head of state, Henri Konan Bédié and former Prime Minister Alassane Dramane Ouattara were the main challengers in this race for the presidential seat for which the polls would most likely not take place before 2010.

Media Overview

The Ivorian media landscape so replete and varied with about a hundred newspapers and periodicals as well as radio stations, still bears the consequences of the war and some structural difficulties.

It is mostly the radio stations located in areas under the control of the New Forces which faced the most difficulty with their facilities. They were either abandoned or operated by the leaders of the New Forces. Generally, all media outlets complained about the war, which they said caused damages to their infrastructure, the volume of activities or their market share.

With regard to the exercise of press freedom, the emergence a peculiar violation was noted, such as placing under siege and ransacking of a newspaper's office or the tearing up of newspapers on the newsstands just to exercise the right of reply. The daily newspaper, Le Nouveau Réveil (pro opposition) was at the receiving end of this harassment.

Furthermore, a good number of media practitioners were assaulted sometimes by entities other than representatives of the state or unidentifiable persons. In all, there were four lawsuits against media practitioners during the year under review.

Many journalists were victims of verbal threats or assaults. Yet they refrained from informing their directors or referring the matter to the competent authorities. The Observatory for Press Freedom and Professional Code of Ethics (OLPDED) which was discharging this responsibility went through difficult moments in its operations.

In any case, some journalists clearly stated that they had doubts about any real political will to address their concerns.

Freedom of expression in the media is guaranteed in the statute books, as the legal experts would indicate. However, most of the media outlets suffer from the wrongful use of this freedom. This is due to a

poor internal organisation and the very structure of the media landscape.

Currently, Côte d'Ivoire has one state-owned television with two channels and one pay-per-view channel which offers the multichannel package of Canal + Horizons. State-owned television has been making efforts to offer platforms for debate in view of the elections, but due to the lack of specialised journalists the debates have remained superficial.

Though there are more than 100 radio stations, local radio stations are not authorised to broadcast news while their share of advertisement is rationed by laws which govern the broadcast sector.

All these have given rise to questions about the liberalisation of the broadcast sector in Côte d'Ivoire. A survey conducted on the television sector called for the licensing of two private channels to get the process of liberalisation going in the sector.In the print media sector, during the year under review, pluralism was seen from the large numbers. The 15 or so general information daily newspapers on the market were more or less focused on political information about a political party leader or on a partisan cause.

The newspapers therefore did not portray pluralism in terms of ideas and opinions in their columns. However, pluralism was present in the totality of the newspapers while it was absent in the partisan newspapers. Only three general information newspapers seemed to embrace editorial independence.

Despite the implementation of the Ouagadougou Agreements by the transitional government, there were still radio and television stations under the exclusive control of the New Forces, hence outside the actions of the bodies regulating the national media outlets.

The government, through the Ministry of Communication, strived to carry through the reforms expected in this sector. The results had been interesting with regard to the strengthening of the prerogatives of the regulatory bodies, the identity card of professional journalists and communications professionals.

The issue of the media development fund and the reform of the legal status of the Ivorian News Agency were somewhat lagging behind. The first identity cards for professional journalists and communication professionals were distributed and the managers of the support fund for media development were installed.