Shells of looted banks sprout weeds, paint peels off shops, and crater-sized holes in the road well up with clay-colored water and plastic bags every time it rains.
Man bore the brunt of the fighting when a 2002-3 war divided the once prosperous West African nation in two, leaving its north and far west in rebel hands. But a long overdue Oct. 31 election meant to reunify the country looks increasingly likely, and with that, residents hope, lasting peace is within reach.
Aside from the occasional riot, Ivory Coast has been spared violence since a 2003 cease-fire, but the crisis has scared off investment and left both halves of it prey to racketeering police and soldiers who harass civilians and choke roads.
“I don’t even care who wins as long as we can have peace back,” said Didier Iba Djroh, 25, a local rice farmer.
Eight years after clashes between President Laurent Gbagbo’s troops and rebels littered its streets with bodies, residents like Djroh hope for a regeneration of their battered town.
“We’ve been paralyzed ever since this crisis ... but I really believe these elections will solve all our problems.”
If Man can sustain peace, then anywhere in Ivory Coast can.
The town and the area around it remain a tinderbox of rebel factions and armed pro-Gbagbo militias that could see violence if the poll is disputed between him and main rivals Henri Konan Bedie and Alassane Ouattara.
Opinion polls put Gbagbo in the lead, but not to win outright and the race is expected to be neck-and-neck.
Land disputes between migrant farmers from Burkina Faso and Ivorian cocoa planters still simmer and could reignite.
Even if the election is smooth, or violence short lived, redressing the neglect of the north and west and solving land tensions will take many years.
The war halved coffee exports, the main industry in Man.
“We were so prosperous before,” said Fanta Doumbia, 29, balancing a bowl of flip-flops she was hawking on her head.
“Now there’s nothing. We need a leader to give us work,” she said, as stick-thin children with no school to go to made small change scrubbing Man’s filth off the shoes of passersby.
Yet despite its fragile state, residents and the rebels themselves are optimistic that the crisis is behind them.
Rebel deputy political leader Sidiki Konate said identity cards issued by the electoral commission ahead of the poll had effectively resolved the whole basis for the rebellion.
“Identity was the main cause of our struggle,” he told Reuters in an interview at his home in Man last week.
The conflict was rooted in a row over who was Ivorian in a land full of migrant farmers from neighboring Burkina Faso and Mali. The ID cards aim to redress the damage done by populist politicians who denied citizenship, not just to the migrants but also to northern Ivorians with cultural ties to them.
Everyone who can prove at least one parent is Ivorian got a card. With this, the rebels say, they have achieved their goal.
Konate told Reuters last week the rebels would desist from backing any candidate and hand over control to whoever wins.
After that, they will go into politics.
A unified nation should allow authorities to develop former rebel-controlled land, lowering risks of future uprisings.
“Youths with employment are not the ones who take up arms,” Gbagbo told a campaign rally in Man over the weekend.
But that will depend on how quickly Ivory Coast’s economic growth gets on track, analysts say.
The economy shrank by around 1.5 percent in 2002 and 2003 each. After that, growth rates were virtually flat until 2008, when they hit 2.2 percent.
Its population grew faster, so it has really got poorer.
Growth in 2010 is seen at 3 percent, hardly enough to tackle chronic unemployment. Analyst forecasts of 4 percent next year hinge on the vote eventually delivering an undisputed leader.
Though the election is likely to be disputed, and violently so, few analysts expect it to last long, especially since the winner will be able to cut a deal with the aggrieved losers.
Elsewhere, some worry that rebel commanders will not be keen to give up the commodity smuggling and racketeering fiefdoms that have enabled them to get rich. But they have promised to do so after reunification and analysts say they have no choice.
That still leaves the land disputes, but both Ivorian and Burkinabe farmers interviewed by Reuters said they doubted such tensions would again flare up into armed conflict.
Gbagbo’s nationalist rhetoric tapping into xenophobia against migrants has stopped since a deal was reached on the electoral list, and as he attempts to broaden appeal beyond his core supporters.
“We worked fine together before the war, so we should also once it’s over,” said Ivorian farmer Debay Bah Zou. “It was politicians who divided us. Now I think we can reconcile.”
