Former Ivorian Rebel Leader Declares Presidential Candidacy

Former rebel leader Guillaume Soro has officially announced that he will run for the presidency in 2020, posing a challenge for current President Alassane Ouattara. (Wikimedia Commons)

Former rebel leader and Ivory Coast Prime Minister Guillame Soro announced on October 12 that he would run for president in the 2020 national election. Soro is the first and only politician to officially announce his candidacy. He resigned from the National Assembly presidency back in February following a split with incumbent President Alassane Ouattara.

“My stool was ripped away, but I’m aiming for a more comfortable chair,” said Soro when asked about his campaign, referring to his prior resignation from the National Assembly.

Although only one candidate has officially declared, there is speculation that other major politicians will run and cause potential fissures in the country’s post-civil war coalition.

Ouattara is constrained by a constitutional limit of two terms, although he has argued that a constitutional change in 2016 enables him to stand for election again in 2020 if he chooses to do so. 

The constitutional reform changed the requirement that presidential candidates must have two natural-born parents from Ivory Coast. Ouattara argued that the 2016 revision permits him to serve two terms starting from 2020 even though he has already served two terms since first being elected in 2010. His argument is that the revision cancels his previous presidential term count starting in 2020, which makes it possible for him to run again.  

Ouattara’s desire to run for a potential third term may be the result of former-President Laurent Gbagbo’s acquittal at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, where he stood trial for alleged war crimes committed during Ivory Coast’s civil war. If Gbagbo’s acquittal holds, then he will be eligible to run for the presidency, potentially destabilizing a country that has experienced two civil wars in the last two decades. 

“I want to make sure the country has unshakable peace,” said Ouattara to supporters at a congress of the Rally of the Republicans (RDHP), his political party, potentially signaling his intent to run if the others do.

Ouattara’s consideration of another presidential campaign is also motivated in part by speculation that former-President Henri Konan Bedie might run for the presidency. Bedie last year ended his coalition with Ouattara’s party, an arrangement that had originally reunified the country after a civil war in 2011. Bedie’s Democratic Party (PDCI) is the most popular party in Ivory Coast, according to one poll, with Gbagbo’s Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) in second, and Ouattara’s party in third.

Soro launched his candidacy by founding the Political Committee (PC) party, which is modeled after President Emmanuel Macron’s Republic on the Move (REM) party in France. PC’s goal is to unite three of Ivory Coast’s political parties: the National Alliance for Change (ANC), the Rally for Ivory Coast (Raci), and the Movement for the Promotion of New Values in Ivory Coast (MVCI). The party is appealing to people who feel that they have been abandoned by the current majority party, Ouattara’s RDHP, possibly referring to how Soro resigned from the National Assembly after Ouattara established the RDHP to contest the 2020 election. Soro refused to join the RDHP. 

Soro initially led a rebellion in 2002 against then-President Laurent Gbagbo that divided the country until Ouattara was put into office in 2012. Soro’s announcement has raised concerns about splits in the original coalition that Ouattara and Soro put together as Ouattara was expected to back Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly.

Gbagbo is another major politician who many inside the country have speculated will make a run for the presidency after being acquitted at the ICC. However, Gbagbo remains in detention at The Hague and the prosecution intends to appeal his acquittal, which muddles any potential for a presidential run.

As the largest economy in the region and the world's largest producer of cocoa, there are concerns about potential instability that may result if old fault lines from the civil war are opened again during the election. Whether they will be depends on the decisions of Bedie, Gbagbo, Ouattara, and the outcome of the appeal in the ICC.