Ivory Coast is in crisis. The instability arising from the post-election violence of five years ago continues to deepen. The government is increasingly repressive. Many Ivorians cannot meet the cost of living. Jobs are scarce. Insecurity perpetrated by gangs of unemployed youths makes life uncertain. Yet the government of Alassane Ouattara doesn't seem concerned with any of that. His current project is a new constitution whose barely hidden agenda is to keep him in power beyond 2020.

The ICC Chief Prosecutor will attempt to establish the existence and execution of a secret plan to keep President Gbagbo in power. But the defendants will tell the world how global political actors, some African countries and some multinational companies destroyed Ivory Coast. They will emphasize that the “Ivorian crisis” is a crisis of globalization, sparked by Gbagbo’s plan to end the 1961 France-Ivorian treaty of cooperation.

The apparent calm in the West African nation is deceptive. Many unresolved issues have created seething tensions that make the likelihood of renewed violence real. A transitional phase is required, for all actors to prioritize the birth of a new contract and prepare a new electoral cycle by building on past failures.

The next elections are in October 2015 and Allasane Outtara is already preparing to seek a second term. But the country is deeply divided by the violent crisis that brought him to power and ongoing repression of opponents. Ouattara has only achieved a shaky stability. The country needs complete disarmament of rebel soldiers, equitable justice and a true political dialogue.

Dr Assoa Adou, a former minister of environment in the government of President Laurent Gbagbo, was recently arrested for his political activities. A strong figure of the FPI party, he fled into exile in Ghana after the electoral violence of 2010. In Ghana, he chaired the coordination of the FPI in exile but returned after three years.