Seven months before the presidential election in Ivory Coast scheduled for October 25, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) unveiled the provisional electoral list on March 17. Of the 8.7 million registered voters, including 969,000 newly registered voters, three major political figures are absent: former President Laurent Gbagbo, his former minister Charles Blé Goudé, and former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro. Their exclusion is justified by past judicial convictions.
However, Tidjane Thiam, leader of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), does appear on the list, despite questions about his dual French-Ivorian nationality. Since the beginning of the year, some of his opponents have invoked a rarely enforced provision of the 1961 Nationality Code, which stipulates that an Ivorian loses his nationality if he acquires another. In February, he began the process of renouncing his French nationality, a request that was accepted in early March and is expected to be formalized shortly.
Protests and Threats of Appeal of Ivorians
The political parties of Gbagbo, Blé Goudé, and Soro denounce these exclusions and plan to file appeals within the given two weeks. Gbagbo’s African People’s Party of Ivory Coast (PPA-CI) considers this decision unfair and likely to fuel political tensions. Its executive chairman, Sébastien Dano Djédjé, criticizes the exclusion based on a conviction, even though Gbagbo was acquitted by the International Criminal Court in 2021.
Charles Blé Goudé, who has distanced himself from his former mentor Gbagbo, finds himself in a similar situation. Although acquitted by the ICC, he remains under sentence of twenty years in prison in Ivory Coast and has not been granted an amnesty, unlike Simone Gbagbo, former First Lady and declared candidate.
United Opposition for Electoral Reform
Faced with these exclusions, several opposition parties, including the PDCI, the COJEP, and Pascal Affi N’Guessan’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), created the Coalition for Peaceful Change in Ivory Coast (CAP-CI). Under the leadership of Tidjane Thiam, this group advocates for political dialogue and reform of the electoral system to ensure transparent and inclusive elections.
The government, through its spokesperson Amadou Coulibaly, rejected this request, stating that the political dialogue had concluded in 2022 and that appeals should be addressed to the CEI. This position risks exacerbating tensions in the run-up to an election that is already shaping up to be highly tense.