PREVIEW
Party’s survival strategy risks triggering electoral turmoil as key opposition figures are banned
The ruling Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP) is pushing for President Alassane Ouattara in elections on 25 October – without him on the ticket the party was likely to split into quarrelling factions.
Less clear is how 83-year-old Ouattara, a former deputy managing director of the IMF, sees a fourth term. His silence after being nominated by the RHDP in June prompted speculation that he had planned to propose a successor, with Vice-President Tiémoko Meyliet Koné as a leading contender (AC Vol 66 No 15, Unity on stage – but what happens after Ouattara?).
Five years ago, Ouattara sought to retire, anointing Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly as his successor, only for him to die weeks later shortly during heart surgery. Though the constitution, revised in 2016, has a two-term limit, the Constitutional Court ruled that since Ouattara’s first term took place under a different constitution it did not count for the purposes of the two-term rule.
Political rival and international banker Tidjane Thiam has described Ouattara’s decision to run for a fourth term as a ‘violation of our Constitution and a new attack on democracy,’ and protests have been organised for 7 August.
The main opposition Parti démocratique de Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) selected Thiam as its presidential candidate but an Ivorian court removed him from the electoral register in April because he previously held dual French-Ivorian nationality (AC Vol 66 No 9, Contest heats up as court blocks Thiam).
That has left a divided PDCI in crisis; made worse because Thiam had broken ranks with the 25-party opposition Coalition pour l’alternance pacifique en Côte d’Ivoire by forming an alliance with former President Laurent Gbagbo’s Parti des Peuples Africains – Côte d’Ivoire.
Gbagbo and ex-Prime Minister Guillaume Soro are also banned from standing. Barring a constitutional crisis or a popular uprising, it is hard to see how Ouattara won’t win.
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