Ivory Coast: Gbagbo nominated as his party’s candidate for the 2025 presidential election

Hibapress

Former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo was nominated by his party on Friday in Abidjan as a candidate for the presidential election scheduled for the end of 2025.

“I agree to be your candidate” for the presidential election scheduled for October 2025, announced Laurent Gbagbo during a ceremony of his formation, the African People’s Party – Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI, opposition).

In his speech given at the end of the day in front of a thousand supporters, Mr. Gbagbo, 78, pledged “to serve a single mandate (…) but a mandate where everything will be completed”.

The former Ivorian president (2000-2011) is however ineligible.

Acquitted by international justice of crimes against humanity during the bloody post-electoral crisis of 2010-2011, he was sentenced in 2018 in his country to 20 years in prison for acts linked to this crisis.

Pardoned in 2022, a year after his return, by the current president Alassane Ouattara, he was however not granted amnesty, which prevents him from being re-registered on the electoral lists.

In September 2023, during the municipal and regional elections, the PPA-CI only managed to win a handful of municipalities.