WINNING COALITIONS AND ETHNOREGIONAL POLITICS - THE FAILURE OF THE OPPOSITION IN THE 1990 AND 1995 ELECTIONS IN COTE-DIVOIRE

Why is that former dominant or single party regimes, especially those in Africa, have generally survived and even emerged strengthened after the introduction of multi-party competitive elections? In Cote d'Ivoi re since 1990 the ruling party has been able to win elections by using incumbency to present itself as the organization most likely to be ca pable of putting together a winning coalition. In a society segmented by a multiplicity of cultural and religious divisions and where politi cal power is a zero-sum game, the logic of democratic representation m eans that no group can afford to be excluded. Yet in the 1990 and 1995 Ivorian elections the opposition attacked the ethnic character of the government and deliberately mobilized ethnic minorities, regional and religious (Islamic) sentiments. They therefore failed to escape, in e lectoral terms, from their extremely localized strongholds. Their atte mpt to mobilize around an anti-foreigner platform in 1990 rebounded in 1995 when the government itself took over their 'ultra-nationalist' s tance by excluding non-Ivorians from the elections. The consequent exc lusion of the opposition's favoured Presidential candidate and the fai lure of the opposition alliance to agree on a non-northern, non-Islami c alternative candidate led to a violent boycott and the eventual coll apse of the opposition alliance.