Former Credit Suisse chief Tidjane Thiam and former President Laurent Gbagbo are barred from contesting next month’s presidential election in Ivory Coast, although Gbagbo’s ex-wife, Simone Gbagbo, will be able to run, an official said on Monday.<\/p>\n
President Alassane Ouattara, 83, announced in July he would seek a fourth term in the world’s top cocoa-producing nation, and analysts\u00a0expect him to win, given the weak field of challengers.<\/p>\n
But tensions over candidates’ eligibility risk fuelling unrest in Francophone West Africa’s largest economy, which has a long history of election-related violence. Ouattara’s government has promised a peaceful vote.<\/p>\n
Thiam, the designated candidate of the main opposition party PDCI, was widely expected to be excluded after a court\u00a0ruled in April\u00a0that he should be removed from the electoral roll because he was a French national when he registered.<\/p>\n
Ivory Coast law states that candidates must be Ivorian citizens and cannot hold another nationality.<\/p>\n
Monday’s decision, announced by Constitutional Council President Chantal Nanaba Camara, validated five candidacies out of 60, including Ouattara’s. It came just over a month before the official campaign period begins on October 10.<\/p>\n
Laurent Gbagbo’s refusal to accept defeat in the 2010 election triggered a brief civil war that killed more than 3,000 people and only ended with his arrest alongside Simone Gbagbo at their Abidjan residence.<\/p>\n
Laurent Gbagbo was tried and acquitted of crimes against humanity at the International Criminal Court.<\/p>\n
Simone Gbagbo was convicted in an Ivorian court of offences against the state during the 2011 civil war, but Ouattara granted her amnesty in 2018.<\/p>\n
Thiam said in a statement on Monday the election next month risked becoming a “coronation” for Ouattara.<\/p>\n
The former CEO of Credit Suisse also said a fourth term for Ouattara would be unconstitutional, though Ouattara has argued that a new constitution approved in 2016 reset his two-term limit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former Credit Suisse chief Tidjane Thiam and former President Laurent Gbagbo are barred from contesting next month’s presidential election in Ivory Coast, although Gbagbo’s ex-wife, Simone Gbagbo, will be able to run, an official said on Monday. President Alassane Ouattara, 83, announced in July he would seek a fourth term in the world’s top cocoa-producing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"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":"Reuters","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":[1121,1711,4402,1745],"class_list":["post-17747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-alassane-ouattara","tag-laurent-gbagbo","tag-simone-gbagbo","tag-tidjane-thiam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17747","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=17747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}