Faced with activists from his party who came to meet him at his private home in Abidjan, former president Henri Konan Bédié aged 86, clearly indicated his intentions to compete in the presidential election on October 31, 2020.
“I am both surprised and happy with the content of your messages asking me to be a candidate in the election of our party’s candidate for the presidential election in October 2020. Happy and proud of this initiative on your part, in return I would like to thank you and express my gratitude to you”.
The executive secretary in charge of communication and propaganda of the PDCI-RDA, Jean-Louis Billon (prospective candidate for the same presidential and for the same political formation), for his part, assured: “I withdraw my candidacy and I ask all the young people to line up behind you, refering to Henri Konan Bédié, to lead the fight and bring you victory. We are united, loyal activists and we will play with both strength and discipline.”
What President Bédié has hinted in essence that he will go to the presidential election, according to him, “to the sacrifices made by the militants and all the political staff (from the summit to the base) of the PDCI-RDA ”.
On the scale of the Ivory Coast, this true-false rebound (the decision of Bédié was awaited) nevertheless changes the data in the various political staffs.
Indeed, the outgoing president Alassane Ouattara elected in 2010, then in 2015 had declared Thursday March 5, 2020 in the Ivorian political capital Yamoussoukro (about 2 hours from Abidjan) before the parliamentarians (Senate and National Assembly) gathered in congress and convened for the circumstance that he would not make a 3rd mandate.
But already at the end of a four-day state visit to the Hambol region (north-central), in November 2019, Ouattara had specified that he would be a candidate if notably President Henri Konan Bédié and Laurent Gbagbo, the same generation as he were, were also to be candidates.
Now that Bédié has declared himself a candidate, what will Ouattara do? Will he show up? Everything suggests that the candidate nominated in his camp Amadou Gon Coulibaly is sick and has been receiving care in Paris for almost a month.
For his part, Henri Konan Bédié called on his activists to massively register on the list in order to take part in the October vote and to secure his victory.
With Bédié’s candidacy, this brings the declared candidates to four: Guillaume Soro (GPS, opposition), Amadou Gon Coulibaly (RHDP, in power) and Mamadou Koulibaly (Lider, opposition).
Reference: https://www.theafricareport.com/20647/cote-divoire-if-gbagbo-and-bedie-run-then-so-will-i-ouattara/
