Expansion of Ivorian government underlines president's intention to divide junior coalition partner, but raises civil unrest risks

President Alassane Ouattara of Côte d'Ivoire named a new government on 10 July that brings in 10 additional ministers, after dissolving the previous administration six days earlier. Three more government posts have been given to the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (Parti Démocratique de la Côte d'Ivoire: PDCI), the junior partner with Ouattara's Rally of the Republicans (Rassemblement des Républicains: RDR) in the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la Démocratie et la Paix: RHDP) coalition. Jean-Claude Kouassi of the PDCI has become the new minister of energy and mines, but all of the key ministries, including defence, finance, and agriculture, remain in the same hands. The post of arts minister went to Sidiki Konaté, an ally of National Assembly speaker Guillaume Soro, who retains great influence over sections of the military who originated in the former rebel Forces Nouvelles (FN).

Significance: The reshuffle is a consequence of the PDCI having formally decided on 19 June to reject Ouattara's plan to persuade the six constituent parties of the RHDP to end their existence as separate entities and be fully absorbed into the coalition. Many in the PDCI believe that this strategy is primarily aimed at preventing a candidate originating in the PDCI from securing the coalition's presidential nomination in 2020 to succeed Ouattara. It now seems clear that Ouattara is trying to divide the PDCI, as all of its ministers in the government are committed to the unified party idea despite the PDCI's formal rejection of it. Ouattara has further tried to build consensus, despite opposition accusations of a "bloated" government, by ensuring all the smaller RHDP component parties have a ministerial position, as well as a Soro ally. The key indicator of political instability now is whether the PDCI under former president Henri Konan Bédié decides to formally leave the RHDP coalition. In this case, the PDCI is likely to ally at some level with the former ruling Ivorian Popular Front (Front Populaire Ivorien: FPI) of deposed president Laurent Gbagbo, raising the risk of political protests featuring several thousand participants, particularly in commercial capital Abidjan, ahead of municipal and regional elections due before the end of 2018.