Ivory Coast’s president says he will run for a third term, dramatically upping political tensions

Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara delivers an address to the nation during the country's national holiday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast August 6, 2020. - Press Service of the Presidency /Reuters
Ivory Coast's President Alassane Ouattara delivers an address to the nation during the country's national holiday in Abidjan, Ivory Coast August 6, 2020. - Press Service of the Presidency /Reuters

Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara has said that he will run for re-election in October, defying his opponents who say the constitution forbids a third term and dramatically raising tensions in a country which has never seen a peaceful democratic transfer of power.

Mr Ouattara had publicly toyed with the idea of running for a third term for years, despite warnings from observers that such a move would damage the country’s nascent democracy and could spark a conflict.

In March, Mr Ouattara announced he would step down. But after the president’s chosen successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died suddenly last month, Mr Ouattara has finally thrown his hat into the ring.

“Out of civic duty, I decided to respond favourably to the call of my fellow citizens who asked me to be a candidate for the presidential elections,” the 78-year-old said.

The president’s opponents have called the decision ‘deplorable’. They say his third term bid violates the constitution and will destabilise a country still recovering from a civil war.

“President Ouattara is sowing the seeds of the destabilisation of Ivory Coast,” Maurice Kakou Guikaoué, the executive secretary of the opposing Democratic Party of Ivory Coast, told Radio France Internationale.

Ivorian law limits presidents to two terms, but Mr Ouattara argues that the new constitution adopted in 2016 acted as a reset button, allowing him to run for a third time.

A newly arrived member of the 1st Company of the 2nd Regiment of French Foreign Legion Paratroopers stands at a checkpoint on the Sassandra river near Guessabo, Ivory Coast, in 2002.  - CHRISTINE NESBITT /AP
A newly arrived member of the 1st Company of the 2nd Regiment of French Foreign Legion Paratroopers stands at a checkpoint on the Sassandra river near Guessabo, Ivory Coast, in 2002. - CHRISTINE NESBITT /AP

Ivory Coast is Francophone Africa’s economic linchpin and before the pandemic it was one of the fastest-growing economies on earth. But the country’s politics are shaky and has suffered from two civil wars fought over political succession in the last twenty years.

Ouattara’s first win in 2010 sparked a civil war that killed about 3,000 people when his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept his loss. The conflict divided the country in two and dragged in thousands of United Nations blue helmets, French soldiers and Liberian mercenaries.

Observers have warned that any major instability in Ivory Coast could leave the door open for the jihadist groups raging across neighbouring Burkina Faso.