On 25 October 2025, Ivorians will be called to vote in a presidential election with unique characteristics. On September 9, the Constitutional Council published the final list of five approved candidates, a decision that cannot be appealed and which closes the door to several major contenders, including leaders of the two main opposition parties. This unexpected configuration could give the election a new dimension. Indeed, traditional electoral competition along domestic party lines might give way to geopolitics, confronting the neo-liberal pro-Western status quo with populist calls for economic nationalism, resource sovereignty and strategic realignment.
‘For a general, the supreme skill is to win the war without fighting a battle.’ These words of Sun Tzu take on a whole new dimension in relation to Côte d’Ivoire’s current president Alassane Ouattara. Although his lieutenants have always maintained that he would be in the running, he himself has long seemed to have different plans than staying in power.
In 2020, it was only after the sudden death of his then Prime Minister and declared successor, Amadou Gon Coulibaly, that the man who had wanted to ‘pass turns’ to a new generation ended up running for a legally-disputed third term. Today, it is Ouattara’s possible fourth term that contributes to rising tensions. After months of hesitation, ADO, as supporters call him affectionately, used one of his trademark phrases to officially announce his renewed candidacy: ‘Sometimes, duty can transcend even a promise made in good faith.’
In office since April 2011, following one of Côte d’Ivoire’s major political crises that claimed the lives of 3,000 people, Alassane Ouattara, 83, is ready for more, it seems. As the outgoing president, he is indeed seen as the only real contender in this election, since the candidacies of the two main parties have not been approved by the country’s Constitutional Council. This has led many observers to say that the outgoing president has already secured his victory and that the real issue at stake in this election lies elsewhere.
A hand-picked group of novices
Opposing him are two women and two men, who, although well-known on the Ivorian political scene, share a major weakness: three of them have never competed for the highest office before. Nevertheless, they all know the terrain well. Jean-Louis Billon, heir to Côte d’Ivoire’s largest private employer, the agro-industrial group SIFCA, and self-declared ‘man of action’ has indeed already been minister of commerce and president of the chamber of commerce alongside his business commitments.
A dual responsibility that paints his open economic nationalism in an ambiguous light. Born in Bouaké, the country’s second largest city, Billon studied in the United States and worked for a major multinational cocoa exporter before returning to take over the family business.
Like Billon, Henriette Lagou also defines herself as a woman of action. The validation of her candidacy came as a surprise to everyone except herself. “I am a woman of action. I work quietly. Because I know how the field works,‘ she tells anyone who will listen. As the second female politician to run for presidency in Côte d’Ivoire, she received 0.89% of votes in 2015. ’This first experience will help us in this election,” she wants to believe.
A former Minister for Family, Women and Children in the Affi N’Guessan government between October and December 2000, Henriette Lagou Adjoua, born in 1959, began her political career in the former single party PDCI before joining the National Congress of Resistance for Democracy (CNRD), close to President Laurent Gbagbo. This commitment brought her closer to the Ivorian left, where she rubbed shoulders with a certain Ahoua Don Mello.
An engineer by training, Don Mello is a major figure on the Ivorian left. Although not very outspoken, he has more than one trick up his sleeve. Laurent Gbagbo, Côte d’Ivoire’s most controversial president between 2000 and 2011, learned this the hard way. At the time, Don Mello was Gbagbo’s loyal ally. While everyone in the party demanded that Gbagbo be included on the electoral list as the party’s candidate, Don Mello, Gbagbo’s up to this point loyal ally, suggested a plan B in case the party’s request was not successful.
In fact, he did much more than suggest it; he prepared this plan B. So much so that less than a week before the deadline for submitting candidacies, Don Mello managed to submit his own candidacy and is now in the running for the presidency.
This was a somewhat unsavoury feat for Laurent Gbagbo, who decided to expel Don Mello from his party, the African People’s Party – Côte d’Ivoire. A skilled strategist, the latter stands out in the Ivorian political landscape by his active role in Russia-Africa networks. This includes since 2021 serving as the official representative of the Russian business group BRICS for West and Central Africa, and for his openly pro-sovereigntist, pan-Africanist and anti-Western stance including close ties with Moscow through figures such as Alexander Zotov, former representative of the Roscongress Foundation for Africa and now head of the mining company ABC (African Bauxite Corporation).
At present, it may be premature to consider him the Kremlin’s candidate in this election. But his connections with the Russian business world and his political stance, marked by a very aggressive discourse against cooperation with the West, particularly France, on the one hand, and his call for greater cooperation with Russia and the countries of the Sahel Alliance on the other, are signals to watch. And he is not alone in this so-called sovereigntist line. He shares this line with the former first lady, Simone Gbagbo. She too is in the starting blocks for this presidential election.
While all the opponents condemned the decision of the Constitutional Council, Simone Ehivet Gbagbo took the opposite view and ‘congratulated the Council for its good work’. A short sentence whose consequences have yet to be measured. Nevertheless, this statement is an expression of revenge against her now ex-husband, who filed for divorce and continues to pursue legal action to prevent her from continuing to use the last name ‘Gbagbo’.
An experienced politician, Mama Simone, as her supporters call her, has been involved in every democratic struggle since 1990 and the establishment of a multi-party system in Côte d’Ivoire. Benefiting from an amnesty law for the charges against her after the events of 2010, she seized the opportunity to get herself on the starting line for this presidential election – while others, including her ex-husband, are excluded from the election.
The two main opponents sidelined
Acquitted by the International Criminal Court after nearly 10 years of proceedings (2011-2020), Laurent Gbagbo, former trade unionist and academic, thought he was off the hook. That was without counting with the Ivorian justice system, or more precisely, the political forces behind it. While his ex-wife benefits from an amnesty law that allows her to retain her civil and political rights, Laurent Gbagbo has not been granted a presidential pardon, preventing him from running as a presidential candidate.
For his supporters, the situation is clear: this is a ‘political affair’ designed to prevent their champion from running. In any case, the final list unveiled by the Constitutional Council does not include the name of the former president of the republic. Whether it is a consolation prize or not, he has a companion in misfortune: Cheick Tidjane Thiam, candidate for the conservative opposition party PDCI.
Thiam and Gbagbo have in common that their candidacies have been deemed inadmissible, albeit for different reasons. While Gbagbo’s case is linked to a court conviction, Thiam, ex-Credit Suisse banker and nephew of Côte d’Ivoire’s first president Félix Houphouet-Boigny, finds himself in a situation that he could and should have avoided.
According to Article 48 of the Ivorian Nationality Code, ‘any Ivorian adult who voluntarily acquires another nationality loses their Ivorian nationality’. It is by virtue of this law that Thiam, who spent almost his entire career abroad and obtained French citizenship in 1987, saw his name removed from the electoral roll and therefore from the list of candidates.
What are the issues at stake?
‘To conquer without risk is to triumph without glory,’ as the saying goes. But when considerations lie elsewhere, little heed is paid to maxims and other good offices. Côte d’Ivoire is not only the main economic power in the French-speaking West African region. It is also one of the last Western allies in French-speaking Africa, where Boko Haram terrorism, Russian disinformation and populist sovereignty aspirations continue to spread.
If Côte d’Ivoire were to experience another post-election crisis and succumb to renewed xenophobia, it would destabilise the entire region. It is clear that the longevity of the current regime rests mainly on defending the neoliberal status quo, while becoming increasingly authoritarian. Strategic economic sovereignty, on the other hand, can be an important pillar of more structural economic transformation.
Recent developments in the region have shown once again that there is a fine line between the desire to advance one’s country and the open oppression of anyone or anything perceived as alien to the nation, however – with regrettable consequences for both the population and national economies. The non-validation of Cote d’Ivoire’s main opposition parties’ candidates could be the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Yet, for now, as long as Ouattara is still alive and kicking, the economy growing and memories of past post-electoral violence remain vivid, the elections are unlikely to fundamentally change the course of the caravan.
N. Traore, is a freelance journalist. Caroline Cornier is a postgraduate researcher at the University of Manchester.
