ABIDJAN. Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara called on the country’s youth to vote in large numbers in the upcoming presidential election, touting himself as the candidate most committed to their welfare during a campaign rally Saturday.
Ivory Coast, a nation of 32 million and one of West Africa’s economic powerhouses, is due to hold its presidential election on Oct. 25 with Ouattara running against four other candidates.
The election is being held amid political tensions after key opposition figures were barred from running, including former President Laurent Gbagbo and former Credit Suisse chief executive Tidjane Thiam.
Speaking at a rally in the capital of Abidjan, Ouattara, 83, said he is seeking a fourth term to fulfill his promises of a better life for young people. “I have always been committed to offering the best to our youth, so that you can start businesses, work, learn, and be independent,” he said.
After changing the constitution in 2016 to remove presidential term limits, analysts say Ouattara has high chances of winning the election with little challenge from the other candidates.
The Ivorian leader has said he is committed to addressing the country’s security and economic challenges. However, opposition leaders said his government has failed to meet expectations and suggested that those barred from running were removed from the ballot to pave way for Ouattara’s victory.
The ban on key opposition leaders has prompted protests that authorities have tried to block. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested, with some already sentenced to time in jail.
At Saturday’s rally, Ouattara and his party officials pitched his candidacy to thousands of youths in attendance. The Ivorian leader has “done a lot for young people, and we want him to continue,” said Florine-Auxane Loukou Bledja, one of the local leaders of the ruling party’s youth movement.
Former Ivory Coast First Lady Simone Gbagbo has gone from hiding in a bunker in an attempt to avoid arrest to defiantly announcing she will run for president.
In an extraordinary comeback, the controversial 76-year-old was this week surprisingly allowed to contest October’s elections, calling on supporters to help “build a new nation”.
For years, Gbagbo worked side-by-side with her ex-husband Laurent, and was considered to be the power behind his throne.
Now, with a criminal conviction and a divorce behind her, she takes centre stage as a presidential candidate in her own right.
Gbagbo was Ivory Coast’s first lady from 2000 to 2011 and was dubbed “the iron lady” due to her reputation for toughness.
While her supporters fondly called her “maman” (French for “mum”), Gbagbo was feared within the party she set up with her husband, the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI).
“All the ministers respect me. And they often consider me above them,” she told French magazine L’Express during her husband’s presidency.
At rallies, Gbagbo often invoked her evangelist Christian faith, firing off spirited, eloquent speeches in support of her husband.
Gbagbo met Laurent in 1973, at a time when both were powerful figures in Ivory Coast’s trade union movement.
Gbagbo had degrees in history and linguistics, and as a teacher, was a key member of various educators’ unions.
The couple’s relationship was also built on the struggle against then-president Félix Houphouët-Boigny.
The Gbagbos protested against Houphouët-Boigny’s autocracy, which lasted for 33 years, calling for multi-party democracy.
Simone Gbagbo gave passionate speeches in support of her husband – next month she herself will take centre stage [AFP via Getty Images]
As a result of their activism, the pair were jailed several times.
“I engaged in political struggle against the former regime alongside men,” Gbagbo recalled In her l’Express interview.
“I spent six months in prison, I was beaten, molested, left for dead. After all those trials, it’s logical that people don’t mess with me.”
In 1982 the pair co-founded the FPI. That same year, Laurent fled to France following harassment from Houphouët-Boigny’s security forces and Gbagbo was left to raise the couple’s twin daughters alone.
After six years apart, Laurent returned and the pair married in an intimate ceremony, with less than 10 guests present.
The Gbagbos soon had further cause for celebration. In 1990 Houphouët-Boigny finally caved in, allowing the first national elections in Ivory Coast since independence three decades earlier.
Laurent decided to run for president, his wife a key figure in his campaign.
“Laurent had the good-natured gab, Simone the uncompromising discourse,” French newspaper Le Monde said of the Gbagbos’ political partnership.
In less flattering terms, Ivorian opposition newspaper Le Patriote wrote: “Laurent Gbagbo – expansive, warm, and devious… his wife, Simone Ehivet-Gbagbo – enigmatic, cold, and secretive.”
In an election marred by allegations of widespread rigging, Laurent lost the presidential race to Houphouët-Boigny by a landslide.
He did, however, win a seat in the National Assembly and five years later, his wife gained one too.
Gbagbo campaigned for her husband once again when he ran for president in 2000. This time, he won, after all other opposition candidates had been excluded by the military leaders who had seized power.
But, once a champion of democracy, the new president began adopting draconian measures to stifle political dissent. His backing of the concept of Ivoirité, or Ivorieness, pushed soldiers in the north to take up arms and the country was divided in two.
It is thought his wife had huge influence over the security forces, who were used by the administration to silence opposition voices.
Furthermore, presidential elections slated for 2005 were postponed six times, with Laurent saying he needed to establish control of the whole country before he could hold elections, although he eventually agreed to them in 2010.
In a surprise result, he lost to Alassane Ouattara – Ivory Coast’s current president – but refused to accept the result. This attempt to stay put sparked another devasting civil war in which more than 3,000 people died.
After the vote, Gbagbo fiercely defended her husband’s decision to stay on, dubbing Ouattara a “bandit leader”.
“The time for debates about the elections between Gbagbo and the ‘bandit leader’ is over,” she said in an address to supporters.
“Our president is firmly established in power and he is working.”
Eventually, as pro-Ouattara forces backed by French troops advanced on the presidential residence, the couple took refuge in a bunker. They were arrested there, and hauled off to a hotel in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s main city, effectively ending the five-month conflict.
After they were captured, photos of the fallen Gbagbos circulated amongst Ivorians [Reuters]
At her trial five years later, Gbagbo described her detention at the hotel.
“I myself arrived with my buttocks exposed, my nudity exposed. I was subjected to several attempted rapes in broad daylight, all in the presence of French soldiers who were filming,” she told the court.
Gbagbo was sentenced to 20 years for “attempting to undermine the security of the state”, disturbing public order and organising armed gangs during the civil war.
However, just three years later, President Ouattara granted Gbagbo an amnesty in what he said was a move to foster reconciliation. This is why she was allowed to stand in next month’s election, despite her conviction.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) pursued separate charges against Gbagbo in 2012, also relating to the civil war, but they were later dropped.
The ICC went after Laurent too – they charged him with crimes against humanity and he spent seven years in custody at The Hague.
The couple have long maintained their innocence, rejecting all charges against them as politically motivated.
Laurent was eventually acquitted by the ICC and returned home to Ivory Coast in 2021.
But there would be no tear-jerking reunion with his wife – days after landing on Ivorian soil, the former president filed for divorce, having fostered a relationship with journalist Nady Bamba.
Gbagbo hit back at her husband – through her lawyer, she accused Laurent of “blatant and well-known adultery” and “abandonment of the marital home”.
Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to step down after the 2010 elections triggered a bloodbath [AFP via Getty Images]
The former first lady has since been quietly and methodically rebuilding her political base, following her break from the FPI.
She founded a new party, the leftist Movement of Capable Generations (MGC) and in her campaign for next month’s election pledges a “modernised” and “prosperous” Ivory Coast.
Gbagbo’s candidacy is not only politically significant but symbolically powerful in a country where women remain largely underrepresented in national leadership.
Only 30% of Ivorian parliamentarians are women, and few have held senior roles in government.
Gbagbo’s reputation for activism and democracy has been tainted, but she is still seen as one of the strongest challengers to Ouattara in next month’s poll.
A political veteran with powerful rhetoric, she looks set to gain the backing of her husband’s supporters, after he was barred from running himself.
But in this election, the spotlight will be firmly on Simone Gbagbo. And should she win the presidency, the “iron lady” would make history as Ivory Coast’s first female president – yet another milestone in a turbulent, four-decade long political career.
Additional reporting by Nicolas Negoce in Abidjan
More Ivory Coast stories from the BBC:
[Getty Images/BBC]
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ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast — Former Youth Minister Charles Ble Goude, who was acquitted of crimes at the International Criminal Court, returned home Saturday to Ivory Coast after more than a decade of exile.
He arrived in Abidjan on a commercial flight and made no comment at the airport, which was heavily guarded by police.
Ble Goude was the leader of the Young Patriots, a pro-government youth organization seen by many as a militia, and youth minister under Former President Laurent Gbagbo.
More than 3,000 people were killed in violence that erupted after Gbagbo refused to accept defeat by his rival in the 2010 election, current Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara.
Ble Goude was ultimately cleared in 2019 at the International Criminal Court, along with Gbagbo, of responsibility for crimes including murder, rape and persecution following the disputed election.
Judges halted the trial before defense lawyers had even presented evidence, saying prosecutors failed to prove their case, and appeals judges upheld the acquittal.
Gbagbo returned to Ivory Coast last year and while some had feared his return could set off new unrest, Gbagbo was received by Ouattara himself and has mostly maintained a low profile.
Human rights groups say the Young Patriots created a climate of terror, erecting barricades and checkpoints where they attempted to identify “enemies of Ivory Coast” — meaning supporters of Ouattara. Because Ouattara is from northern Ivory Coast and one side of his family has roots in Burkina Faso, anyone having a northern name, as well as immigrants from neighboring nations, became targets.
Until Gbagbo was forced from power in April 2011, Ble Goude held regular rallies where he used increasingly xenophobic rhetoric, which many believe incited his supporters to violence — claims that he has denied.
“Can you show me a single video, or a single audio, where I asked the youth of Ivory Coast to hurt foreigners?” Ble Goude told The Associated Press in 2012 from an undisclosed location. “These are vulgar lies that I deny. It’s not true.”
Ble Goude was later arrested in 2013 in Ghana after nearly two years in hiding, and then was extradited to the ICC. After his acquittal, he sought financial compensation, saying that he was “the victim of a wrongful prosecution amounting to a grave and manifest miscarriage of justice.” ICC judges rejected the claim earlier this year.
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Associated Press writer Krista Larson in Dakar, Senegal, contributed.
