Meanwhile Gbagbo's former party Front populaire ivoirien (FPI) has been haemorrhaging support ever since Pascal Affi N'Guessan came out on top of the post-Gbagbo leadership contest...

A fascinating contest is shaping up in the central Moronou region where another Gbagbo hard-man Don Mello Ahoua will cross swords with Gbagbo's former prime-minister-turned-adversary Pascal Affi N'Guessan whose fief this is...

His welcome home rally was attended by two emblematic figures noted for the cooling of their own relationships with Gbagbo: estranged wife Simone whom the ex-president sued for divorce in mid-2021 and Pascal Affi N'Guessan who led the Front populaire ivorien and took it into electoral politics against the wishes of Gbagbo then in the ICC's Dutch jail facing similar charges to Blé Goudé...

FPI: Gbagbo remakes his old ruling partyLaurent Gbagbo quickly staked out a new political space for himself after returning from his decade of exile in June divorcing his wife of 32 years Simone Ehivet-Gbagbo and discovering that the new FPI leader Pascal Affi N'Guessan was not going to make way for him...

The government-recognised party leader Pascal Affi N'Guessan is melting away as the man he calls 'my master' takes charge...

Gbagbo's traditional political party the Front Populaire Ivoirien has been riven by factional rivalries with Pascal Affi N'Guessan heading a government-recognised FPI that won only two seats (AC Vol 61 No 22 Ouattara sweeps half the board)...

The FPI has ceased to exist as a unified political party and Gbagbo's challenger within the party Pascal Affi N'Guessan lacks the charisma to bring it back to life...

Maurice Kakou Guikahué the Secretary-General of Bédié's party the once all-dominant Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) remains in prison as does Pascal Affi N'Guessan the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) candidate who lost to Ouattara in 2015 who was arrested for 'sedition'...

His main opponents Henri Konan Bédié and Pascal Affi N'Guessan – who boycotted the poll even though their names were on the ballot papers – are challenging the legitimacy of the president's mandate...