Report: Ex-Côte d’Ivoire president Gbagbo to contest 2025 election

Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Ivory Coast, has reportedly agreed to contest the country’s presidential election in 2025.

The election is expected to be held in October 2025.

Katinan Kone, spokesperson of the African People’s Party – Cote d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), which Gbagbo founded, told Reuters on Saturday that the former president would be the party’s flagbearer.

Kone spoke after a meeting of the party’s central committee, according to the report.

Gbagbo, president of the West African country from 2000 to 2011, had founded PPA-CI in 2021 following his acquittal on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

In 2020, President Alassane Ouattara  was re-elected for a third term.

The Ivorian president had said after his second term he would make way for a new generation of leaders.

However, Ouattara later said he would seek a third term after the death of Prime Minister Amadou Coulibaly, his preferred successor, in July.

He said a constitutional court ruling in 2016 made him eligible to run again, and allowed him to reset the country’s two-term presidential limit.

Quatarra’s third term bid had sparked off protests and violent clashes before the election.

After results were announced, Gbagbo, his predecessor, refused to accept defeat, turning Abidjan, the country’s capital, into a battleground.

French forces were called in to intervene and to help Ouattara’s loyalists oust the former president.

The incumbent president has not yet said whether he will run for the 2025 election.