Alassane Dramane Ouattara

Who is he: Alassane Dramane Ouattara is, as of 2011, the internationally recognized president of the Ivory Coast. In 2010, Ouattara was permitted to run as a presidential candidate by incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo even though strictly speaking Ouattara was not a legal Ivorian.

Despite reported fraudulent electoral results, Alassane Ouattara was declared the winner by the Independent Electoral Commission, although the only legal authority to legitimize results is the nation's Constitutional Council that declared Gbagbo the winner, as well.

UN representative Mr. Youn-Jin Choi  then declared that it was up to the UN to certify the results of presidential elections. He named Ouattara the winner on the basis of the provisional results and the international community accepted the UN results rather than those of the Ivory Coast. The UN is not allowed to meddle or interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign States, but this understanding may be changing with the virtual abrogation of the Peace of Westphalia in 2005 by the Security Council.

The Peace of Westphalia, some 400 years old, has now apparently been replaced by R2P (Responsibility to Protect), which virtually demands that UN members act if they believe a state is being significantly abusive to its citizens or is engaging in genocide. One problem with R2P is that a perception of when a state is being "abusive" is bound to be a subjective one.

What this really means is that the UN's most powerful Anglo-American players will be able to bring the entire force of the international community to bear against those countries and leaders that they wish to punish, for whatever reason. The Peace of Westphalia has never worked very well, but R2P is a recipe for incessant war and military meddling. The Ivory Coast and Laurent Gbagbo have already felt the brunt of it.

Background: Alassane Dramane Ouattara was born on January 1, 1942 in Dimbokro, Ivory Coast. Completing his primary education in Côte d'Ivoire, Ouattara finished his secondary education in Upper Volta, now known as Burkina Faso. Ouattara then proceeded to the United States and received a Baccalaureate in Elementary Mathematics from Drexel Institute of Technology, followed by a Masters and Ph.D in Economics at the University of Pennsylvania by 1972.

In April 1968, Ouattara joined the infamous International Monetary Fund (IMF) and in 1973 joined the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO). Ouattara became Deputy Governor there in 1982. Two years later, Ouattara returned to the IMF to serve as Director of Africa and succeeded Abdoulaye Fadiga at the head of the sub-regional institution.

In early 1990, Ouattara joined the government of Ivorian President Felix Houphouet-Boignyas and took an unelected position as prime minister at the end of this same year. Following the death of President Houphouet-Boigny in 1993, Ouattara returned to the IMF and was appointed to Deputy CEO in 1994. Finally, in 1999, Ouattara seceded his position at IMF to run in the 2000 Ivorian presidential election.

In October 2000, an Ivorian court canceled his nationality certificate, thus nullifying his eligibility as a presidential candidate per the 1998 Constitutional amendment that a presidential candidate has to be of Ivorian birth, of direct Ivorian descent, and a continuous resident in Côte d'Ivoire for ten years. This also nullified his eligibility to run in the 2005 Ivoirian presidential election.