In response to the country’s outcry over its decision to run for a fourth term, incumbent President Alassane Ouattara will go to the polls on Saturday, October 25 to cast their ballots. Under the constitution, presidents may only serve a maximum of two terms, however, Ouattara argues major constitutional change which was implemented in 2016 “reset” his limit.
The second-largest economy in West Africa and the world’s top cocoa and cashew nut producer is Ivory Coast. Perched along the coast of the western Atlantic, between Ghana and Liberia, it boasts vast swaths of rainforest and pristine beaches. The government’s headquarters are in Yamoussoukro, the inland capital city of Yamoussoukro, while the commercial hub of Abidjan is home to about one-third of the 32 million people. French is the official language in the former colony of France, while the main indigenous languages are Bete, Baoule, Dioula and Senufo.
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According to World Bank economic indicators, Ouattara’s economy has continued to grow, but residents complain about rising living costs and the ungleich playing field for political candidates.
Ivory Coast has historically experienced deadly pre- and post-electoral violence. More than 3, 000 people were killed in the second Ivorian civil war in 2011 after Laurent Gbagbo, the country’s then-president, refused to concede defeat to Ouattara. This time around, sporadic protests have already erupted in the weeks leading up to the election in response to a ban on key contenders from the polls, particularly Tidjane Thiam, the popular former head of Credit Suisse bank.
The government has stepped up against these demonstrations, imposing a ban on demonstrations, and detaining at least 237 members of the Common Front political movement, which fights for the exclusion of political candidates. By Tuesday this week, 58 people had been sentenced to 36 months in prison for protesting.
Analysts predict that there will be no end to the violence on election day, but more than 44 000 police and military personnel have been stationed throughout the nation to keep things calm while voters cast ballots.
Some 8.7 million registered citizens aged above 18 will be eligible to vote this time, but the country has a low average voter turnout. Only 53% of voters turned out for the 2020 elections.
The winning candidate must take an absolute majority of the votes, a second round will take place if no one clears a majority in the first.
Who is prohibited from running for president?
Tidjane Thiam
The Constitutional Council shocked Ivorians in June when it upheld a lower court ruling that Tidjane Thiam, leader of the main opposition Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast (PDCI) and Ouattara’s biggest challenger, would be barred as a result of his erstwhile dual nationality.
The 63-year-old has widespread support from young people. Prior to joining Credit Suisse, he held positions in renowned financial institutions.
Thiam, a cousin of the first Ivorian president from 1960 to 1993, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, was born in the Ivory Coast but also received French nationality in 1987. The court determined that this was too late despite the fact that he had already renounced it in March.
Laurent Gbagbo
Also barred is former president and arch Ouattara rival Laurent Gbagbo of the African People’s Party of the Ivory Coast (PPA-CI), who was charged with crimes against humanity in connection with the 2011 election-related civil war, when he refused to step down for the declared winner, Ouattara.
Gbagbo, 80, was charged at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, Netherlands, but he was freed in 2021 after a lengthy trial and his verdict of innocence. He was still barred from standing as president because of a criminal conviction in an Ivorian court, also related to the war.
Guillaume Soro, Ouattara’s former prime minister, was found guilty in 2021 of plotting a coup, along with Gbagbo’s close ally Charles Ble Goude, who was also charged and acquitted alongside him at the ICC.
Critics say the exclusion of key candidates, particularly Gbagbo and Thiam, has given Ouattara an unfair head start and essentially cleared the way for his fourth term.
According to Beverly Ochieng, a political analyst in Senegal for consulting firm Control Risks, “the exclusion of Gbagbo and Thiam has diminished political competition and will continue to drive political grievances that underpin civil unrest and political violence, including on the election day.”
Who is running, exactly?
Alassane Dramane ‘ ADO ‘ Ouattara
Ouattara, 83, is currently in office. He has been in charge since December 2010.
He is the leader of the ruling Rally of Houphouetistes for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), and his government has been praised by observers for its efforts to restore unity following the bitter civil war, which was fuelled by ethnic tensions or “Ivoirite” – claims that particular ethnic groups were more “Ivorian” than others. The contentious phrase pitted the predominantly Muslim north against the primarily Christian south. During his presidency, Gbagbo and his supporters had aimed to discredit Ouattara by calling him “non-Ivorian” because of rumours he has roots in neighbouring Burkina Faso.
Ouattara’s strong economic record is supported by significant infrastructure projects, including large-scale exports of cocoa and other agricultural products. Gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 8.2 percent on average each year in the first decade of Ouattara’s administration, according to the World Bank, and has continued to grow steadily since then, even during the COVID-19 crisis.
In a landslide victory, he won the second-term election to be president in 2015. However, support for him has slipped since he decided to run again in 2020, as many Ivorians say it violated the two-term constitution limit. Ouattara initially said he would not run, but he changed after the pandemic’s candidate for his party passed away.
Backed by the Constitutional Council, Ouattara’s supporters argue that the adoption of a new constitution in 2016, which removed age limits for presidential candidates and revised nationality requirements, automatically reset the clock on his terms. They claimed that Ouattara was actually qualified to serve two more terms starting with the election of 2020.
Violent protests broke out following the president’s decision to run in 2020, and opposition parties boycotted the election, handing Ouattara another landslide. Pre- and post-election riots left at least 85 people dead.
There is widespread hostility across the Francophone West African countries towards their former coloniser, and the president’s decision to run for a fourth term has prompted protests in Abidjan, partly because of his perceived closeness to France.
According to experts, the Ivorians’ government shut down French military installations that had been in operation for decades in the country in January 2025. This action was intended to acquaint the populace.
Still, Ouattara remains the clear favourite out of those who have been allowed to run, and he has promised to escalate infrastructure development and focus on education and health.
Analyst Ochieng noted that while the president is supported in the northern region, Ochieng’s party is also supporting the south, but is ultimately supported by state funding.
“With each electoral cycle, the playing field continues to be uneven due to strong institutional control and influence by the ruling camp over the political and security apparatus”, she said.
Simone Gbagbo
The head of the Movement of Capable Generations party, formed in 2022, Simone Gbagbo, 73, was widely known as the Ivory Coast’s “Iron Lady” during the turbulent administration of her then-husband, Laurent Gbagbo, who led the country during the first civil war between 2002 and 2007, and provoked a bloodbath in 2011 when he refused to concede to Ouattara.
Simone Gbagbo was widely viewed as a major orchestrator behind her husband’s decision. In a raid by regional forces to bring back peace and put an end to the war, the couple were detained together at their Abidjan residence in April 2011.
Although both Laurent and Simone Gbagbo were indicted by the ICC for alleged war crimes related to the conflict, Ouattara’s government did not extradite the former first lady. Instead, she went on trial in the country and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2015 for crimes against the state. In 2018, Ouattara granted her amnesty. The couple divorced in 2023 following Laurent’s return from his trial at The Hague.
It is unclear why Simone has not been blocked from running for president despite her conviction. She has stated at her political rallies that she will address ongoing gaps in healthcare and employment opportunities while Ouattara’s government has led infrastructure projects. She has also spoken out against the use of force against protesters and alleged raids on the homes of some opposition leaders.
Jean-Louis Billon
Having resigned recently as trade minister, the 60-year-old is the candidate for the Democratic Congress (CODE), a new coalition of 18 parties and political movements. A right-leaning politician, Billillon has described himself as.
The businessman and parliament member previously tried and failed to become a candidate for the opposition PDCI party after Thiam was barred from running. Many of the PDCI’s supporters claim they were left with no choice but to support a new candidate because the organization has not yet submitted a new candidate.
Billon, who was a member of the cabinet until early this year, when he resigned to run for the elections, is promising “generational change” in leadership for Ivorians and has pledged to attract rapid private sector investment in the country. He is the son of Pierre Billon, the owner of the SIFCA Group, which is credited as the nation’s largest private employer with about 17, 000 employees.
Ahoua Don Mello
Mello, 67, is running as an independent after Gbagbo’s PPA-CI kicked him out because he refused to take any part in the elections at all. He is a former ally of Gbagbo, the former president, and his spokesperson during the 2011 crisis.
Mello, like other Gbagbo allies, has been subject to sanctions from the United States and the EU and was in self-exile from the Ivory Coast until 2021.
Henriette Lagou Adjoua
The 66-year-old leader of the centrist coalition, Group of Political Partners for Peace, is a campaigner for women in politics. One of the first women to run for president during the 2015 elections was the former minister of social affairs between October and December 2000.
What are the main concerns for this election?
Political freedom and election violence
The government’s ban on key political candidates, the government’s blocking of demonstrations, and the arrest of demonstrators have drawn strong criticism from Ouattara’s opponents, who also accuse the current president of backsliding against democratic principles. There are concerns that there will be violent clashes between demonstrators calling for a vote boycott and security officials during the voting process.
Due to the heavy presence of government forces, Ochieng, the analyst, noted that while violence may occur in the opposition’s strongholds of Abidjan and Yamoussoukro, it is unlikely to spread throughout the nation, as seen in the 2011 crisis.
“Despite political misgivings about Ouattara’s re-election bid, politicians do not want to appear as if they are encouraging acts of violence or vandalism that will likely lead to their prosecution”, Ochieng said, adding that there have so far been no signs of any sort of systematic mobilisation which could disrupt the polls.
Social disparities
Critics of Ouattara say his progress on the economy has been largely buoyed by International Monetary Fund-backed loans and, importantly, has not been equally experienced, with development centred on urban areas.
The IMF is currently responsible for delivering more than $4 billion to the nation, which is one of the eight most overburdened nations.
More than 39 percent of the population was living below the national poverty line in 2023, according to the World Bank.
According to the World Bank, the richest 20% of the population’s households consume about six times as much as the poorest 20% do.
There is also sharp economic disparity between urban areas, where the poverty rate is an already very high 31 percent, and rural areas, where it is 54.6 percent. The more deprived north and the wealthier south also have stark differences in terms of the availability and quality of crucial infrastructure like water, schools, and healthcare facilities.
Climate change is adding to inequality, with heatwaves disrupting cocoa production as well as the harvest of tomatoes, chillies and other food crops in poorer, rural areas. Food imports from neighboring nations like Burkinabe and Niger have been forced upon the nation.
Armed groups in the region
In addition, Ivory Coast is vulnerable to violence from its Sahel neighbors, Mali and Burkinabe, where armed groups like Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) and the ISIL affiliate in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) have been brutally executing residents and military installations.
In March 2016, three armed men attacked a hotel at the beach resort of Grand Bassam, killing 19 people. Later, two organizations took responsibility for the attack, calling themselves al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Mourabitoun. It marked the first such attack on Ivorian soil.
In a second incident in northern Kafolo, on the border with Burkinabe, in June 2020, armed men carried out a military outpost, killing 14 soldiers and injuring others.
Source: Aljazeera
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