Ivory Coast president announces bid for fourth term after changing constitution
The 83-year-old president declared his plan in a televised announcement.
He won a third term in 2020 after he initially said he was not going to run again.
However, he changed his position following the death of his hand-picked successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly.
'For several months, I have received numerous calls from fellow citizens regarding my potential candidacy in the presidential election,' the president said.
Referring to the country by its name in French, he went on: 'Women and young people from all regions of Cote d'Ivoire, and countless anonymous voices from our neighbourhoods, towns and villages have reached out.
'In response to those appeals, I announced on June 22 that, as president of all Ivorians, I would, after careful reflection, make a decision guided solely by the best interest of the nation.'
His most prominent rival, Tidjane Thiam, has already been barred from running by a court on the grounds that he was still a French citizen at the time he declared his candidacy, even though he later renounced his French nationality. Ivorian law bans dual nationals from running for president.
Elections in Ivory Coast have usually been fraught with tension and violence. When Mr Ouattara announced his third term bid, several people were killed in the ensuing violence. There have been protests against the court's decision to bar Mr Thiam from contesting the election.
Mr Ouattara is the latest among a growing number of leaders in West Africa who remain in power by changing the constitutional term limit.
Coup leaders in the region have used alleged corruption within democratic governments and electoral changes as a pretext to seize power, leading to a split in the regional bloc, Ecowas.
'For those critical of Ecowas and civilian governments, Ouattara's decision just reinforces the legitimacy crisis everyone in the region is facing. It makes people like Ouattara look like hypocrites,' Nat Powell, Africa analyst at Oxford Analytica, told the Associated Press.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Statesman
9 hours ago
- New Statesman
How Britain lost the status game
Photo by Stefan Rousseau/AFP I've always been a bit puzzled by the 1956 Suez Crisis. The idea of Britain, France and Israel plotting together but being defeated by the honest, righteous Americans does feel, nearly a lifetime later, a little strange. But the most baffling thing about the Suez Crisis is the idea that it was a crisis. It's always described as this a great national humiliation which ruined a prime minister, the sort of watershed to inspire national soul-searching, state-of-the-nation plays and a whole library of books. And yet, compared to the sort of thing which literally every other European country had to deal with at some point in the 20th century, it's nothing. Britain was not invaded or occupied; Britain did not see its population starve. Britain simply learned that it was no longer top dog. That's all. The event and the reaction don't seem to go together. But this, of course, is to see the world from the perspective of today. Now, we all know that Britain cannot just do what it wants – that the US is the far more powerful player. At the start of 1956, though, large chunks of the map were still coloured British pink (or, come to that, French bleu), and the median opinion at home was that this was broadly a good thing. Suez was the moment when the loss of status we now date to 1945 came home. I wonder, in my darker moments, if we're going through something similar now – a less dramatic decline, perhaps, but a potentially more ruinous one. The loss of empire, after all, was mainly an issue for the pride of the political classes. Today's decline in status affects everyone. Consider the number of areas in which the current British government seems utterly helpless before the might of much bigger forces. It's not quite true to say that Rachel Reeves has no room for manoeuvre – breaking a manifesto pledge and raising one of the core taxes remains an option, albeit one that would be painful for government and taxpayer alike. But her borrowing and spending options are constrained by the sense of a bond market both far flightier than it once was, thanks to an increase in short term investors, and less willing, post-Truss, to give Britain the benefit of the doubt. The thing that much of the public would like Reeves to do – spend more, without raising taxes – is a thing it is by no means clear she has the power to do. Over in foreign policy, Keir Starmer has offended sensibilities by making nice with someone entirely unfit to be president of the United States, and whose actions place him a lot closer to the dictators of the 20th century than to Eisenhower or JFK. The problem for Starmer is that saying this out loud would likely result in ruinous tariffs, or the collapse of NATO before an alternative system for the defence of Europe can be prepared, or both. Again, he has no space to do what his voters want him to do. In the same vein, consider the anger about Britain's failure to act to prevent the horrors still unfolding in Gaza. It is not to imply the government has handled things well to suggest that at least part of the problem is that – 69 years on from Suez – the government of Israel doesn't give a fig about what the government of Britain thinks. The things the public wants may be outside the realm of things the government can actually deliver. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Even in less overtly political realms, the British state feels helplessly at the mercy of global forces beyond its control. The domestic TV industry, a huge British export, is in crisis thanks to the streamers. AI will change the world, we're told, and it's very possible that isn't a good thing: and what is Westminster supposed to do about that? And with which faculties? In all these areas and a thousand more, people want their government to do something to change the direction of events, and it is not at all obvious it can. Ever since 2016, British politics has been plagued by a faintly Australian assumption that, if a prime minister is not delivering, you should kick them out and bring in the next one. That is not the worst impulse in a democracy. But what if Britain is so changed that delivery is not possible? Researchers have found that social status affects the immune system of certain types of monkey – that the stress of lower status can, quite literally, kill. It already looks plausible the electorate might roll the dice on Nigel Farage. This is terrifying enough. But when it turns out he can't take back control either, but only trash what's there – what then? [See more: Trump in the wilderness] Related
Spectator
20 hours ago
- Spectator
Why can't we agree on data?
John O'Neill and Sam McPhail, the Spectator's research and data team, join economics editor Michael Simmons to re-introduce listeners to the Spectator's data hub. They take us through the process between the data hub and how their work feeds into the weekly magazine. From crime to migration, which statistics are the most controversial? Why can't we agree on data? Plus – whose data is presented better, the Americans or the French? For more from the Spectator's data hub – which may, or may not look like the thumbnail photo – go to: Produced by Patrick Gibbons and Megan McElroy.
Daily Record
a day ago
- Daily Record
Hackers threaten to leak 'top-secret' data after major cyberattack on French military
Hackers have released 30 gigabytes of data and threatened to leak more sensitive military information Cyber criminals claiming to have launched a devastating attack against French naval powerhouse Naval Group have released 30 gigabytes of classified material, whilst threatening to expose further critical military secrets. The French military shipbuilder Naval Group, renowned for crafting submarines and frigates, has dismissed the hacking allegations, confirming it had "immediately launched technical investigations" after sensitive material appeared online. The purported data breach allegedly contains classified intelligence regarding the NATO ally's nuclear submarine fleet. State-owned Naval Group manufactures France's Suffren-class submarines - nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed attack vessels designed for anti-surface and anti-submarine operations, ground strikes, and specialist missions. Boasting a heritage spanning 400 years back to Louis XIII's reign, Naval Group also constructed the French Navy's flagship and only operational aircraft carrier, the Charles de Gaulle, reports the Express. Writing on a dark web platform, the hackers claimed possession of "top-secret classified" intelligence on "submarines and frigates", issuing the firm a 72-hour ultimatum to acknowledge the breach, whilst alleging their cache includes source code for submarine weapons systems. Around 30GB of material was published by the digital criminals, though they insist they possess far more intelligence at their disposal - potentially one terabyte of documents. Naval Group maintained there had been "no intrusion into our IT environments", stating it was the victim of a "reputational attack". As the largest shipbuilder in France, the company, which is nearly two-thirds owned by the French government, boasts a workforce of over 15,000 and generates revenues exceeding €4.4bn. "Naval Group has noticed being the target of a reputational attack with the claim of a cyber-malice act. We immediately launched technical investigations," a spokesperson commented. "All teams and resources are currently mobilised to analyse and verify the authenticity, origin and ownership of the data as quickly as possible. "At this stage, no intrusion into our IT environments has been detected and there has been no impact on our activities." Data breaches have become a global issue, with both commercial entities and governmental bodies succumbing to cyber attacks. Just last week, Microsoft acknowledged that a July software update failed to completely rectify a couple of vulnerabilities, leaving SharePoint servers susceptible to hackers who could remotely execute code, an issue attributed to Chinese "threat actors". In another incident, the US National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees America's nuclear weapons, was recently compromised but maintains that no sensitive information was accessed.
