I saw it reported in today's Financial Times - and in an earlier posting from Sidi yesterday - that the Rally of Republicans [RDR] of Alassane Ouattara has managed, through the first free and fair elections since the transition from military rule to civilian gov't started last year with the flawed and fraud-laden presidential elections of last year, to win the Municipality elections. This is a very important development. To the extent that this is important, is itself in the relative free and fair manner in the way the poll reportedly went and how the RDR rode to victory - albeit not resoundingly. How and where Ivory Coast moves from here remains to be seen. But if Gbagbo's psychology and history is anything to go by, one can presage a situation where when cornered, he will resort to his ethnic and xenephobic bigotry to retain control of the presidency. Gbagbo shares more with Milosevic than many of his left-wing allies/fans allow: the irrelevant post-cold war socialist politician with bankrupt ideas who uses xenophobia, ethnic sentiments and political impropriety to sneakily gain control of the levers of power. By sidelining Ouattara for such flimsy and silly reasons i.e, whether his parents are Ivorian or Bukinabe, Ivory Coast might have missed out on her best opportunity yet to embrace liberal moderation and what it entails in liberating reforms. By his inclinations, Ouattara was [is still, one hopes] another Wade in the making. Yet, thanks to the usual leftist smears [being a former premier under Boigny and a former IMF top official] and the silly and illegal ban that ruled him out of the presidential and parliamentary races, his future in Ivorian politics looks bleak and uncertain. Ouattara along with Wade are perhaps amongst the very few African intellectuals-cum-public figures who truly believe in capitalism, liberal bourgoisie moderation without which Afica will always be in the throes of instability. Their faith in the capitalist order is not only political and economical, but moral. They strongly believe that tempered to the point where it has a human face, there is no credible or viable alternative to capitalism. Under Ouattara's watch as premier, he not only embarked on reforms that seek to promulgate such capitalistic norms and values as the need to trim the state, end state/political corruption[which to an extent is responsible for his recent political problems], encourage not only private capital holding but such civic virtues as individual liberty and responsiblity - central to the liberal credo. I notice how he shares with Wade the tendency not to tout themselves as egalitarians at all cost or insist on material equality, an ideal incongruent with liberalism. Because of the sheer weight of my responsibilities these days, i will break this here. Perhaps late next week or in two weeks time - when i expect to be freer - i will begin a series of postings that will restate the capitalist case in Africa. The first of such series would be called: Capitalism and Human Freedom in Africa. My thanks to Sidi - who perhaps he had shrewdly discerned the continued importance of Ivorty Coast's economic renewal and sense of orientation again after the recent political conflagration to that sub-region of ours - continues to flag articles of importance on the subject of Ivory Coast's political transition. Hamjatta - Kanteh [log in to unmask] [log in to unmask] URL: http://hometown.aol.co.uk/hamzakanteh/myhomepage/newsletter.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface and remember to write your full name and e-mail address. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------