ABIDJAN (IVORY COAST) – Former Ivory Coast president Henri Konan Bedie will contest in the presidential elections in October, he said in a statement on Saturday.
The octogenarian Bedie’s candidacy comes as the latest twist in a stormy build-up to a vote that is wide open after current President Alassane Ouattara said he would not run again after 10 years in power.
“I am both surprised and happy with the content of your messages asking me to be a candidate in the election,” Bedie told members of his PDCI-RDA coalition. “I feel honoured.”
Bedie, 86, was president from 1993-1999. The alliance between his PDCI party and Ouattara’s RDR, forged in 2005, was meant to dominate for generations and help heal the political rifts that led to civil war three years earlier.
The pact helped Ouattara win presidential elections in 2010 and 2015 but collapsed in September 2018 when the parties sparred over whose candidate should be in pole position in 2020.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field