Ivory Coast's 2010-2011 Election Crisis, and the ICC Case That Later Collapsed

Ivory Coast held its first presidential election in a decade in October and November 2010, a vote meant to close out years of political stalemate following the 2002-2007 civil war. In the December runoff, the country’s Independent Electoral Commission declared opposition candidate Alassane Ouattara the winner with 54.1 percent of the vote to incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo’s 45.9 percent, a result recognized by the United Nations, the African Union, and most of the international community. Gbagbo refused to accept it. The Constitutional Council, made up entirely of his own appointees, threw out results from several northern regions favorable to Ouattara and declared Gbagbo the winner instead, and both men were sworn in as president within days of each other, each claiming legitimate authority over the same government.

The standoff held for months through sporadic violence before turning into open conflict in March 2011, when forces loyal to Ouattara launched a military offensive that swept across much of the country and converged on Abidjan, the commercial capital, where Gbagbo’s remaining forces held out under siege. In April 2011, UN peacekeepers and French troops, both already deployed in the country and now acting to protect civilians and enforce the disputed election result, struck Gbagbo’s military positions and heavy weapons directly. On April 11, 2011, pro-Ouattara forces backed by French armor captured Gbagbo at his residence in Abidjan, ending the crisis. Ouattara was sworn in as president on May 6, 2011. The fighting is estimated to have killed around 3,000 people and displaced up to a million more before it was over.

Gbagbo was transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on November 30, 2011, becoming, according to the Court itself, the first former head of state ever arrested on ICC orders, charged with crimes against humanity, murder, rape, and persecution, over violence committed during the crisis. His case took years to reach trial and years more to resolve: on January 15, 2019, ICC Trial Chamber I acquitted Gbagbo and his co-defendant, former youth minister Charles Blé Goudé, of all charges, finding the prosecution had not proven its case. Prosecutors appealed, and on March 31, 2021, the ICC’s Appeals Chamber upheld the acquittal by majority vote, over two judges’ dissents, making the verdict final. A crisis that began with a disputed vote count and ended with international military intervention closed, a decade later, with the very court meant to hold its central figure accountable declaring it could not prove he was guilty of anything at all.