These three known as the 'elephants' are: Henri Konan Bédié who inherited the leadership of Houphouët-Boigny's Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) and succeeded him in power before being ousted in a 1999 coup; Laurent Gbagbo elected President in controversial 2000 polls following a short-lived period of junta rule; and current President Alassane Ouattara who came to power in 2011 following nine years of on-off civil war that saw the country split in two between north and south (AC Dispatches 23/7/21 The elephants talk reconciliation)...
Vol 62 No 23 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Ex-President Laurent Gbagbo's Front populaire ivoirien (FPI) has splintered and its former leader helms a new party; President Alassane Ouattara's Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (RHDP) is split over the succession; and Henri Konan Bédié's Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) is under strain as questions grow about the future of its veteran leader (AC Vol 62 No 13 Old foes re-enter the ring)...
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...
DISPATCHES
Vol 62 No 15 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
The first meeting in over a decade between President Alassane Ouattara and his predecessor Laurent Gbagbo next Tuesday (27 July) is billed as symbolising long-delayed national reconciliation...
Having faced much criticism for his political shortcomings Ouattara is trying to position himself as the man to heal the country's wounds having pardoned hundreds of opposition supporters including Simone Gbagbo (the estranged first wife of Laurent Gbagbo)...
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Vol 62 No 13 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
President Alassane Ouattara faces the most delicate of strategic choices following the triumphal return home last week of his career-long political foe Laurent Gbagbo after his final acquittal by the International Criminal Court of crimes against humanity (Dispatches 21/6/21 Gbagbo's return poses big questions)...
A private party On 21 June former President Laurent Gbagbo moved to put a formal end to his 32-year marriage to the former First Lady Simone Ehivet Gbagbo with whom he founded the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) and was arrested with in dramatic fashion at the end of the siege of his residence in April 2011...
DISPATCHES
Vol 62 No 13 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
As his motorcade filed through the streets of Abidjan on 17 June from the airport at Port-Bouët towards his political headquarters in upmarket Cocody ex-President Laurent Gbagbo's massive following was on show as thousands of cheering citizens lined the route...
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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...
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Vol 62 No 6 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Astute political observers say that unlike former president Henri Konan Bédié's Parti démocratique de la Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) and former president Laurent Gbagbo's Front Populaire Ivoirien it is in fact only Ouattara's party – the Rassemblement des Houphouëtistes pour la Démocratie et la Paix (RHDP) – that has sought to look beyond the figure of the founder-president and make attempts at rejuvenation...
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)...
DISPATCHES
Vol 62 No 5 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Former president Laurent Gbagbo is expected to return to Côte d'Ivoire later this month after 10 years in exile as one of the concessions offered by President Ouattara and his Front populaire ivoirien (FPI) coalition has allied with Henri Konan Bédié's Parti démocratique de Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) to contest the polls...
The elections 'mark the return of Laurent Gbagbo and his political organisation in institutional politics ' said Gbagbo's eldest son Michel who is contesting a constituency in Abidjan...
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Vol 62 No 1 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
Côte d'Ivoire has had one of the world's fastest-growing economies since Ouattara took over the reins from Laurent Gbagbo following the country's second civil war in 2011...
Vol 61 No 24 |
- CÔTE D'IVOIRE
(The two men were confined to the same hotel almost a decade earlier while they waited for Laurent Gbagbo to be dislodged from power in April 2011)...
The same day police lifted the siege of the Bédié residence and those of the remaining CNT members including Assoa Adou exiled ex-President Laurent Gbagbo's right-hand man in Brussels...
Prime Minister Hamed Bakayoko however has reached to former president Laurent Gbagbo and he had a meeting with Assoa Adou...