(3 minutes read)
- Laurent Gbagbo, Ivory Coast’s ex-President is pitching for a new term after a decade-long exile behind him
- He has formed a new party to seek the re-election and is seeking to reunite the left and will be using that platform to the 2025 presidential election
- Gbagbo is 76 -year old and ruled the largest cocoa producing country between 2000 and 2011.
Laurent Gbagbo, Ivory Coast’s ex-President is pitching for a new term after a decade-long exile behind him. He has formed a new party to seek re-election and is seeking to reunite the left and will be using that platform to the 2025 presidential election. Gbagbo is 76 -year old and ruled the largest cocoa producing country between 2000 and 2011. His reign was marked by turbulence and division. From exile, he returned to the West African country in June this year. Ever since, he has been actively engaged in preparing for the next election.
There was a bloody backdrop to Gbagbo’s exile. He was summarily removed from the office in April 2011 after a civil war for a short while which took many lives. The trigger for the civil war was that his refusal to accept electoral defeat by current President Alassane Ouattara. Intervention of the International Criminal Court in The Hague saw him face charges of crimes against humanity resulting from the conflict but eventually acquitted.
Gbagbo headed the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). But fell with other leaders while he was in exile. He left the party to form a new one. Gbagbo now expects around 1,600 delegates will show support at the congress hosted at Abidjan, where his party “African People’s Party – Cote d’Ivoire” (PPA-CI) will evolve a manifesto. The ruling party is also taking steps to crush Crimping Gbagbo’s ambitions. They are proposing to move a bill designed to limit the age of presidential candidates to 75.
