Ivory Coast: with his new party, Laurent Gbagbo wants to “unite the African States”

Published on : 10/17/2021 – 9:40 PM

“We are going to resume our journey together,” said Laurent Gbagbo, Sunday, October 17 in Abidjan, in front of several hundred executives and activists.

He was giving his first speech to an audience of this magnitude since his return to Côte d’Ivoire in mid-June. In a speech of more than an hour, filled with anecdotes, the former Ivorian president spoke at length about his years of incarceration in The Hague (2011-2019) and the prosecutions for crimes against humanity initiated by the International Criminal Court (ICC), from which he was finally acquitted last year.

“I will be in politics until I die!”, Assured, to a standing ovation, the former head of state, aged 76.

“As long as we are micro-states, we are nothing”

In the night from Saturday to Sunday, Laurent Gbagbo had, unsurprisingly, been elected at the head of the PPA-CI by an acclamation of some 1,600 congressmen present in the capital. “We asked ourselves: who is going to lead the party? We looked for … and we found,” quipped the president of the congress, Sébastien Dano Djédjé, to laughter and applause as it was obvious that Laurent Gbagbo, figure central party of this party, was to be its president.

The PPA-CI logo – the fingers of both hands intertwined in a map of Africa – was then formalized, symbolizing the pan-African aim of this new party and its leader. “Look at the world and see which are the powerful ones. They are the big countries, China, the United States, Russia, Canada. As long as we are in micro-states, we are nothing. May the African States unite! “, asserted Laurent Gbagbo, alluding to the United States of Africa, a concept often mentioned but never materialized.

Several political representatives from a dozen African countries were present this weekend for the party’s launch congress.

Laurent Gbagbo remains mysterious about the 2025 presidential election

The FPI, founded underground in 1982, is now in the hands of its former Prime Minister Pascal Affi N’Guessan, with whom Laurent Gbagbo is in political rupture. But a large majority of FPI executives followed the former President of the Republic in this new adventure.

An absence was however noticed this weekend: that of Simone Gbabgo, ex-First Lady from whom Laurent Gbagbo recently filed for divorce. Traveling in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in recent weeks she has been multiplying the signals to trace her own political path.

This new party could become one of the main opposition forces, along with the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) of ex-president Henri Konan Bédié. His manifesto mentions the “obvious decline in democratic gains in the country” and criticizes in particular “financial dependence” on foreign powers.

On Saturday, the n ° 2 of the ruling party, Adama Bictogo, present at the platform of the PPA-CI congress, launched a message of appeasement. “This new party which will be born will strengthen democratic vitality”, he declared.

Regarding the next presidential election of 2025 which is already animating the debates in Côte d’Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo has left suspense on his intentions. “At that age, after this journey, the wisdom is to decide to leave. But I have decided that I will not leave suddenly …”, he said Sunday. The executive is considering introducing an age limit of 75 to run. The current head of state, Alassane Ouattara (79 years old), and his predecessors Laurent Gbagbo and Henri Konan Bédié (87 years old), would then be prevented from competing.

With AFP