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Four candidates will participate in Saturday’s presidential elections in Ivory Coast.
Clashes between communities have killed at least 30 people since August, reliving memories of a 2010-2011 post-election crisis that claimed more than 3,000 lives.
Here are portraits of the four approved, as well as two rejected candidates who are likely to wield great influence from the sidelines.
Alassane Ouattara
A former US-educated IMF official, Ouattara has campaigned for his contested third term in his record of bringing the Ivory Coast back from the ruins of a civil war to strong economic growth.
The victor in the 2010 elections and the conflict that followed, Ouattara was re-elected for another five-year term in 2015, vowing to restore stability and prosperity to the shaken country.
He had promised to hand over power, but in July his plans fell through after his chosen successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died of a sudden heart attack.
At the age of 78, Ouattara decided to run again, arguing that a 2016 constitution review reset the two-term limit to zero, a view backed by the Constitutional Council, the nation’s highest court.
Violence erupted in August when he announced his candidacy, which the opposition dismissed as unconstitutional.
While touting its success in fueling growth in Côte d’Ivoire, critics say it has turned a blind eye to entrenched corruption and that the economic boom has not reached the poor.
Born in Dimbokro, in south-central Ivory Coast, he completed most of his initial education in neighboring Burkina Faso before studying in the United States. He is married to a French businesswoman.
Henri Konan Bedie
Former President Henri Konan Bedie. By SIA KAMBOU (AFP) Former President Bedie, 86, is the standard-bearer for the country’s main opposition, the Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast (PDCI) and a longtime adversary of President Ouattara. Their rivalry dates back three decades.
Bedie became head of state in 1993 after the death of the ruler Felix Houphouet-Boigny and was re-elected in 1995.
He was deposed in a coup in December 1999, the country’s first since independence from France in 1960, and conflicting elections were held the following October.
Bedie’s main influence on national politics has been to promote the “ivory” (the Ivorian), the notion of national identity and national economy in a country with dozens of ethnic groups.
Bedie was third in the 2010 presidential election, behind Ouattara and then incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.
He supported Ouattara in the post-election crisis and during his first six years in power.
Bedie is nicknamed the “Sphinx of Daoukro” for his cunning, though adversaries say he is too old for the top job.
Pascal Affi N’Guessan
Former Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan. By SIA KAMBOU (AFP) N’Guessan was Prime Minister from 2000 to 2003 under Gbagbo.
Head of the Popular Front of the Ivory Coast (FPI) founded by Gbagbo, he ranked second in the 2015 elections with 9.2 percent of the vote.
The 67-year-old is at odds with fans of Gbagbo, a faction of the party called GOR (the French acronym for “Gbagbo Or Nothing”).
Kouadio Konan Bertin
Presidential candidate Kouadio Konan Bertin. By Issouf SANOGO (AFP) The 51-year-old Bertin, known by his initials KKB, fell out with Bedie and the PDCI in 2015 and ran as an independent, taking third place with 3.8 percent of the vote.
His strategy is to go after PDCI members who oppose Bedie’s candidacy and voters alienated by Ouattara, Bedie and Gbagbo’s dominance of the national scene for years.
Rejected applications
Excluded: Laurent Gbagbo, left, and Guillaume Soro. By MICHAEL KOOREN, Lionel BONAVENTURE (POOL / AFP) The Constitutional Court has rejected another 40 nominations, including those of Gbagbo, 75, president from 2000 to 2010, and former rebel leader-turned-prime minister Guillaume Soro, 47.
Gbagbo has never taken a public position on the candidacy, although his supporters submitted an application on his behalf to the electoral board.
The offer was rejected on the grounds that a court in Côte d’Ivoire sentenced him to 20 years in prison in absentia last November for looting the local branch of the Central Bank of West African States during the post-election crisis.
Gbagbo was conditionally released by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague after being acquitted in January 2019 of crimes against humanity.
He lives in Brussels awaiting the outcome of an appeal against the ICC ruling.
Soro provided military aid that enabled Ouattara to come to power during the 2010-11 electoral crisis.
He became prime minister, then president of the National Assembly, but fell out with Ouattara in early 2019.
His application for election was rejected by a 20-year sentence, also in absentia, for alleged misuse of public funds issued in April.
