With Cote d’Ivoire polls looming, President Alassane Ouattara remains tight-lipped

The general election is due to be held in October, but voters have yet to be told who the main presidential candidates will be. The incumbent, Alassane Ouattara, has kept the nation guessing.

This week, a new alliance of dozens of opposition parties emerged, suggesting that some of the candidates already backed by their parties may no longer be on the ballot. 

Although Ouattara’s coalition, the Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (HRDP), has yet to announce its official candidate, there is little doubt that his name will be on the ballot paper.

The 83-year-old former International Monetary Fund (IMF) economist gave the closest indication of this last January when he said he would like to continue serving his country as president, even though his party not yet decided on its candidate.

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“I am in good health and eager to continue serving my country,” he said in a meeting with the diplomatic corps in Abidjan.

The party had earlier in September expressed its support for a potential Ouattara candidacy in the 2025 polls.

Although no member of his party has publicly expressed interest in running for the top job, some observers say that if Ouattara decides not to run, some notable names could emerge from his shadow.

Among them is the president of National Assembly, Adama Bictogo, and former Education minister Ibrahim Bacongo Cissé.

Ouattara came to power on May 6, 2011, following disputed elections in 2010, which led to violence that was to become the country’s second civil war.

The then president, Laurent Gbagbo, a former history professor, had refused to step down after losing the elections to Ouattara, citing irregularities in the conduct of the polls.

He was eventually ousted by a group of rebels loyal to the former youth leader cum former prime minister, Guillaume Soro. The rebels were reportedly backed by French soldiers.

The conflict fuelled ethnic divisions, particularly between the south and north regions of the country, and claimed nearly 3,000 lives.

Gbagbo was subsequently indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court, which later acquitted him.

The 2010 violence, which lasted for five months, followed the first civil war between 2002 and 2007, which was triggered by the refusal of the head of the transitional military government, Robert Guéï, to step down after losing the 2000 elections to Gbagbo.

The 2025 elections, slated for October 25 to November 29, will be the country’s third elections since peace was restored.

Heavyweights in opposition

Ouattara is likely to be re-elected with a weaker opposition. The opposition’s decision to form a coalition was an attempt to seal the rifts that the incumbent had exploited in the past.

The Coalition for a Peaceful Alternation named Tidjane Thiam, a former chief executive of Credit Suisse, as its leader. The 62-year-old, who is also a former finance minister, heads the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire – African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA).

Read: Ouattara, Gbagbo to meet at State House

Other key figures in the coalition include political heavyweight and former Ivorian Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan, head of the Popular Ivorian Front (FPI). The FPI was founded by Gbagbo, who was ousted as its leader while incarcerated in The Hague on the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

It also includes Henri Konan Badie of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), the oldest political party in the country. Former first lady and ex-wife of Gbagbo, Simone, who heads the Movement of Capable Generations (MGC), was named the alliance spokesperson.

Also, part of the coalition is the firebrand former youth leader Charles Blé Goudé’s Young Patriots of Côte d’Ivoire (COJEP). Blé Goudé is a former lieutenant of Gbagbo.

However, this opposition coalition doesn’t have much capital, as previous election results have shown. Since 2015, Ouattara has won by a landslide.

Notably absent from the coalition are Gbagbo’s African People’s Party – Cote d’Ivoire (PPA-CI) and Soro’s Generations and People’s Solidarity (GPS), leaving the opposition divided into at least three main blocs and reducing its chances of defeating the incumbent.

However, some political analysts warn that despite its seeming dominance of the political scene, the HRDP cannot afford to be complacent, especially if the elections go to a second round.

The two previous elections won by Ouattara were disputed: His highest margin of victory was in 2020, when he won 95 percent of the vote, ahead of three other candidates.

His closest opponent in that election was independent candidate Kouadio Konan Bertin, who got two percent, followed by Bedie and N’Guessan with 1.68 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.

If there is a lesson for Ouattara, it lies in analysing the results of the last two legislative elections. Despite increasing his election victory as president from 84 percent in 2015 to 95 percent in 2020, his coalition’s grip on parliament fell from 167 out of the 255 seats to 137 seats over the same period.

The new opposition coalition says its initial focus is on demanding electoral reforms. These include the abolition of the senate and the restoration of presidential term limits, both of which were introduced in the 2016 constitutional amendment.

“We are determined to do our utmost to ensure that peace reigns in Côte d’Ivoire, so that we can have inclusive elections,” said Thiam.

Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s largest cocoa producer with a population of 32 million, is an economic powerhouse in the West African sub-region.

Ouattara has been credited with presiding over some economic progress over the past decade. But he has also been accused of committing all the crimes of which his predecessor was accused of, including human rights abuses and abuse of power.

It has become commonplace for opposition politicians to be arrested during elections under his watch, and there have also been dozens of election-related deaths.

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Ouattara defied popular expectations when he changed the constitution to allow him to run for a third term in the 2020 elections. He had initially decided to step aside for then-Prime Minister Amadou Coulibaly, who died suddenly of a heart attack in the run-up to the polls.

Ouattara’s decision to withdrawal from the race occasioned a Constitutional Court ruling in his favour, citing the 2016 constitutional amendment.

Ouattara has reportedly indicated his intention not to run for a fourth term, but he has also tied that decision to the potential candidacies of his archrivals, notably Gbagbo and Soro.

Following his ICC acquittal, Gbagbo’s return to Côte d’Ivoire was part of a reconciliatory move, but with conditions. The former president was granted all the benefits of an ex-president. But he wasn’t allowed to take part in politics. And to make sure of this, Ouattara refused to grant him amnesty.

Consequently, due to his conviction for his role in the looting of the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) during the 2010-2011 conflict, Gbagbo stand in the elections and was one of dozens of candidates disqualified from contesting in 2020.

Soro, on the other hand, has been living in self-imposed exile since 2019. He left Côte d’Ivoire after being accused of trying to destabilise the country. Soon after, he was charged, tried and convicted in absentia on separate charges of undermining state security and misappropriation of public funds.

He has repeatedly announced his intention to return to the country and run for election.

A similar move was blocked ahead of the 2020 elections after his candidacy was rejected on the basis of his conviction.