Alassane Ouattara’s opponent in the presidential election last October, KKB alias Kouadio Konan Bertin, was appointed Minister of Reconciliation Tuesday, December 15.
Announced by Alassane Ouattara during his swearing in on Monday 14 December, the Ministry of National Reconciliation was born the very next day. And it is entrusted to KKB, Kouadio Konan Bertin.
What will be its roadmap and its room for maneuver? “This ministerial department will be responsible for evaluating our actions with the aim of strengthening national cohesion and reconciliation,” Alassane Ouattara explained on Monday. In the opinion of many observers, the failure of reconciliation after the post-election crisis of 2010-2011 is one of the points that sink in the assessment of the first two terms of office of Alassane Ouattara.
Candidate in the presidential election last October against the outgoing president, KKB had received 1.99% of the votes. The 51-year-old dissident PDCI (Democratic Party of Cote d’Ivoire) dissident ran as an independent and refused the boycott chosen by the rest of the opposition.
In the current context of political deadlock, can KKB be considered as an interlocutor by an opposition that often accuses it of having played the sparring partner of Alassane Ouattara for the presidential election? For the moment at least, it is Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko who has been mandated to resume discussions with the opposition in view of the legislative elections expected by March 2021.