Ivory Coast’s president will seek fourth term after changing constitution to remove term limits

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (AP) — Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara said Tuesday he will seek a fourth term leading the West African nation, which is due to hold elections in October.

His candidacy is contested after he changed the constitution to remove the presidential term limit.

The 83-year-old president declared his plan in a televised announcement. He won a third term in 2020 after he initially said he wasn’t going to run again. However, he changed his position following the death of his hand-picked successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly.

“I am a candidate, because the constitution allows me to seek another term, and my health allows it,” Ouattara said.

His most prominent rival, Tidjane Thiam, has already been barred from running by a court on the grounds that he was still a French citizen at the time he declared his candidacy, even though he later renounced his French nationality. Ivorian law bans dual nationals from running for president.

Elections in Ivory Coast have usually been fraught with tension and violence. When Ouattara announced his third term bid, several people were killed in the ensuing violence. There have been protests against the court’s decision to bar Thiam from contesting the election.

Ouattara is the latest among a growing number of leaders in West Africa who remain in power by changing the constitutional term limit.

Coup leaders in the region have used alleged corruption within democratic governments and electoral changes as a pretext to seize power, leading to a split in the regional bloc, ECOWAS.

“For those critical of ECOWAS and civilian governments, Ouattara’s decision just reinforces the legitimacy crisis everyone in the region is facing. It makes people like Ouattara look like hypocrites,” Nat Powell, Africa analyst at Oxford Analytica, told The Associated Press.

Ouattara justified his decision to run by saying that the Ivory Coast is facing unprecedented security, economic, and monetary challenges that require experience to manage effectively.

Over the past decade, groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State have been spreading from the Sahel region into wealthier West African coastal states, such as Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin.

Ivory Coast’s economy has also struggled with U.S. tariffs and climate-related disruptions to its vital cocoa sector. The country is the world’s leading cocoa beans exporter and produces over a third of the world’s supply.

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Adetayo reported from Lagos, Nigeria. Banchereau reported from Dakar, Senegal

Ope Adetayo, Toussaint Ngotta And Mark Banchereau, The Associated Press