Speaking at a rally in Abidjan on Sunday, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara said that in the coming days, he will announce whether he will run for a fourth term in the country\u2019s 25 October election.<\/p>\n
His message to tens of thousands of supporters came a day after he was officially nominated as candidate by the ruling Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace party.<\/p>\n
The announcement followed weeks of rising political tension \u00a0triggered by a court ruling excluding several opposition politicians.<\/p>\n
Ouattara, who has led the Ivory Coast since 2011, is accused by his critics of tightening his grip on power.<\/p>\n
His supporters see him as a beacon of stability, having made his career as an economist for the International Monetary Fund before turning to politics.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, the two main opposition parties, the African People\u2019s Party of Ivory Coast (PPACI) and the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), launched a joint campaign to demand the reinstatement of their barred leaders.<\/p>\n
The PPACI is led by former President Laurent Gbagbo, while the PDCI, the country\u2019s largest opposition force, is headed by former international banker Tidjane Thiam.<\/p>\n
Both leaders were struck from electoral list by the court, Gbagbo due to a criminal conviction and Thiam over a nationality issue.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast has a history of election-related violence.<\/p>\n
In 2010, a dispute over Ouattara\u2019s victory led to about 3,000 deaths in clashes with Gbagbo supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Speaking at a rally in Abidjan on Sunday, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara said that in the coming days, he will announce whether he will run for a fourth term in the country\u2019s 25 October election. His message to tens of thousands of supporters came a day after he was officially nominated as candidate by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13565,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":5,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[2661,1121,4153,407],"class_list":["post-16713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-abidjan","tag-alassane-ouattara","tag-houphouetists-for-democracy-and-peace-party","tag-ivory-coast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}