He was friendly with President Laurent Gbagbo in Côte d'Ivoire and built a new port there and when Gbagbo lost power in 2011 he quickly befriended Gbagbo's deadly enemy and successor President Alassane Ouattara...

President Alassane Ouattara – there with his wife Dominique and Bakayoko's widow and daughter – was visibly affected by his close ally's death which came less than a year after the death of Bakayoko's predecessor as Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly (AC Vol 61 No 15 Quest for a new dauphin)...

There is a broad consensus that this will be Alassane Ouattara's last term after his controversial third election victory last year considered by many to be in breach of a constitutional two-term limit (AC Vol 62 No 1 Old demons resurface)...

Out of the 255 seats up for grabs in the Assemblée nationale the party of President Alassane Ouattara's predecessor Laurent Gbagbo garnered just eight seats on its own and a further 50 in an uneasy electoral alliance with Henri Konan Bédié's Parti Démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI AC Vol 61 No 13 An 80s classic)...

The hit from the Covid-19 pandemic means that President Alassane Ouattara will find it much harder to mask political and ethnic tensions and stark inequality with stellar economic performance...

Today Issoufou is earning international plaudits for stepping down at the end of his second mandate as the term limit requires – rather than seeking to amend it as his Guinean and Ivorian counterparts Alpha Condé and Alassane Ouattara have done (AC Vol 61 No 22 Condé shrugs off poll doubts & Ouattara sweeps half the board)...

It was only hours after the Constitutional Court confirmed President Alassane Ouattara's overwhelming win at the 31 October presidential elections on 9 November that the victor extended an olive branch to the opposition which had watched helpless as Ouattara barrelled his way to a controversial third term (AC Vol 61 No 22 Ouattara sweeps half the board)...

Although President Alassane Ouattara won a third successive presidential term with 94% of the popular vote it was on a mere 53...

With no sign of President Alassane Ouattara or his major opponents considering meaningful compromise over the 31 October election tensions have taken on a dangerously inter-communal tinge...

United in condemnation of Alassane Ouattara's bid for a third term but failing to present a coherent alternative the Ivorian opposition has all but written off its chances of preventing a first-round presidential victory on 31 October...

Ouattara's diplomatic headaches So often Alassane Ouattara has been at the heart of regional diplomatic efforts to manage other countries' crises...

The presidents of Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire Alpha Condé and Alassane Ouattara have been most vociferous in their hard line against Mali (AC Vol 61 No 17 The junta haggles on transition) and will not have taken kindly to remarks made by their counterpart from Guinea Bissau...