Niger and Ivory Coast provide a stark contrast in responses to democratic voting. They also pose problems for globalisation theory. Niger's presidential election has been acclaimed as peaceful, free, and fair by 2,000 observers from the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the European Union, and others. The dictator, General Salou Djibo, who seized power in 2009 when the previous president, Mamadou Tandja, repealed a constitutional ban on a third term in office, is carrying out his promise to step down. The election is no mean achievement. Niger — vast, landlocked, and drought-prone — is desperately poor. Foreign corporations profit hugely by exploiting Niger's minerals; uranium extraction in particular is tainted by poor safety records and high rates of radiation-induced diseases. In addition, the country is a target for al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and faces a long-running Tuareg rebellion in the northern region. As for the election result, the second-round turnout of about 35 per cent is likely to give victory to Mahmadou Issoufou, who, having won the first round by 13 percentage points over an ally of Mr. Tandja's, Seini Oumarou, is now endorsed by many of the first-round losers.
Ivory Coast, on the other hand, has collapsed into near-civil war with a concomitant humanitarian catastrophe. The election was free and fair, and the country is far wealthier than Niger. But the incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo has rejected the result, which was a clear win for Alassane Ouattara. He has unleashed his troops, who machine-gunned an all-women demonstration in Treichville; 80,000 Ivorians have fled to Liberia, and 450,000 have been internally displaced. As essential supplies dwindle, militias claiming to support Mr. Ouattara have created a condition of near-total lawlessness in Abidjan's Abobo district, amid tribal rivalries with other groups. Mr. Ouattara and his entourage are holed up in a luxury resort, and the 8,000 troops of the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI) have only a limited mandate. There is no doubting the popular commitment to the ballot-box in both Niger and Ivory Coast. The key difference lies only partly in the response of the two authoritarian regimes. The AU and ECOWAS have attempted to mediate in Ivory Coast and have imposed sanctions, but to no apparent effect. What Mr. Gbagbo is exposing, among other things, is that unless multilateral bodies create strong mandates for justifiable humanitarian intervention, the theory that national sovereignty has been vitiated in these purportedly globalised times is a vast overstatement.