By Enyichukwu Enemanna
President Alassane Ouattara, 82, who has ruled Ivory Coast for nearly 15 years will seek a fourth term in office, his party has announced.
Key stakeholders of his Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) party on Monday passed a motion, expressing readiness “to do everything possible” to ensure that the RHDP, under Ouattara’s leadership, was “the undisputed winner of the next presidential election in 2025”.
The latest move violates this assurance to step out of the political stage after his re-election for a third term in 2020.
He had also encouraged his old rivals to commit to withdrawing from politics too.
The party had no viable candidate to replace Ouattara, three members of his cabinet who attended the meeting but pleaded anonymity had claimed.
One of the ministers said: “We’ve told him that supporters don’t want anyone else but him, and we’re aligning ourselves with this choice. He has no choice but to accept and be our candidate in 2025.”
“It’s up to him to make an official statement when he wants to, but he knows that we’re already out in the field campaigning for him,” Reuters news agency quoted another cabinet member as saying.
Heritage Times HT reports that despite the relative peace Outarra has achieved, it will be recalled that many persons were feared dead in the country in 2020 following resistance from his predecessors and long-term opponents, Laurent Gbagbo and Henri Konan Bedie against his bid to seek third term in office which they termed unconstitutional.
Ouattara, who has been in power since 2011 had in 2020 said he would not run for the country’s number office again.
His anointed successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly however passed away months later.
This left Outarra with the option of standing for that election after the Constitution Court cleared his candidacy, an election boycotted by opposition parties.
