Guillaume Kigbafori Soro

Guillaume Soro the former militia leader and the only politician yet to have declared his intention to stand was flying to Abidjan from Paris on 23 December when his private jet diverted to Accra after Soro learned of what he claimed was a planned attack on him on arrival in Abidjan...

Members of Côte d'Ivoire's National Assembly have been in session this week for the first time under the new Parliamentary Speaker Amadou Soumahoro installed by the ruling Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP) to replace Guillaume Soro who quit the chair in February to launch his opposition career (AC Vol 60 No 4 All bets are off)...

Ouattara has lost his most charismatic if controversial potential heir – Guillaume Soro...

Soro threatOpinions are divided over whether Guillaume Soro has a real chance of victory next year...

On 8 February Guillaume Soro finally left his post as Speaker of parliament after he failed to show up for the RHDP founding rally...

These were hitherto seen as the RDR's Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly or Defence Minister Hamed Bakayoko and the PDCI vice-president Daniel Kablan Duncan or Energy Minister Thierry Tanoh or even the increasingly estranged Parliamentary Speaker Guillaume Soro (nominally RDR) (AC Vol 59 No 3 Jockeying for position and Vol 59 No 14 Move over grandad)...

The three protagonists will be former rebel leader and current Parliament Speaker Guillaume Soro defence minister and former presidential favourite Hamed Bakayoko and the latest anointed heir Amadou Gon Coulibaly the current Prime Minister...

The joker in the pack is Guillaume Soro Gbagbo's former Prime Minister Parliament Speaker and Bédié ally who has just revived his Union des Soroïstes (AC Vol 59 No 14 Move over grandad) the clearest sign yet that he will run on his own ticket in 2020...

Sidiki Konaté a close ally of Guillaume Soro the Speaker of the Ivorian Parliament was appointed Arts and Culture minister which effectively halts the possibility of any rapprochement between Soro and Bédié (AC Vol 58 No 20 On Ouattara's terms)...

Watching and waitingWatching the spectacle and weighing his chances is the Speaker of the National Assembly former leader of the Forces Nouvelles rebels Guillaume Soro...

Soro's implication is clear: wealth has accumulated within a circle of well-connected individuals around the presidency; it must be better distributed; the person to do it is Guillaume Soro...

Diendéré led Blaise Compaoré's elite Régiment de sécurité présidentielle (RSP) presidential guard which doubled as a link between the Burkinabè ruling elite and various armed groups in West Africa including Charles Taylor's National Patriotic Front of Liberia Guillaume Soro's Forces nouvelles in Côte d'Ivoire and Sahelian groupings ranging from bands of smugglers and kidnappers to jihadists...

Former rebel leader and current parliamentary Speaker Guillaume Soro is playing the long game setting his sights on 2024 while continuing to build and reinforce his own politico-military network (AC Vol 57 No 18 Ouattara shores up legacy)...