Laurent Gbagbo, the former president of Ivory Coast, has announced that he is willing to run for president once more despite serving a 20-year jail sentence that disqualifies him from office.
2019 saw the trial of Gbagbo, the first former head of state, at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, where he was found not guilty.
After a meeting of the central committee, he “agrees to be the candidate of the PPA-CI” (African People’s Party-Ivory Coast), according to a statement issued late on Sunday.
Even though Gbagbo was exonerated of crimes against humanity in The Hague, he had been given a 20-year prison sentence in Ivory Coast for robbing a bank the year before.
Gbagbo had lost the 2010 elections to Outtara but refused to step down and bloody unrest followed which saw French and UN military intervention.
He was pardoned in 2022 by the current president and his old rival Ouattara but was not amnestied and can therefore not stand for president next year.
His party declared that formalizing Gbagbo’s candidacy for the election would be its top priority and that it would call an extraordinary congress to do so.
The party also stated that they would try to get Gbagbo’s name reinstated on the electoral lists.
He was taken off the list in 2018 because of his sentence, which stripped him of his civic rights.
Tidjane Thiam was named the new president of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), the main opposition party in the West African nation, in December.
However, as of right now, neither Thiam nor Alassane Ouattara have announced their plans to run for president in 2025.
AFP
