Résumé
Because of the impossibility of holding elections in what was still a divided country, the presidential election initially due in October 2005 was still awaited in 2009, this being the ninth year President Laurent Gbagbo was in office. Although normalisation was slowly taking place, the northern part of the country, disconnected from Abidjan since the outbreak of civil war in 2002, remained isolated from developments in the south. Two years after the Ouagadougou Peace Agreement (OPA) signed by Ivorian political forces, the disarmament of the former combatants, dismantling of militias and reunification of Ivorian security forces were still pending, as were the redeployment of the state administration across the territory, identification of citizens and voters, and the preparation of electoral lists. The Ivorian people, struggling to maintain their day to day life in a context of increasing poverty, suffered from a strong sense of fatigue. Developments were bogged down in an endless process of determining who was an Ivorian national and thus eligible to vote, and in repeated justifications for rescheduling the polling date. The proposed date of 29 November was also postponed, preparations for presidential elections becoming an object of pure speculation.