Ivory Coast presidential race: Opposition leader Thiam accuses government of silencing dissent

Edition: Widad WAHBI

 With less than six months to go before Ivory Coast’s presidential election, opposition leader Tidjane Thiam has accused the government of stepping up efforts to silence dissenting voices. In a statement released Thursday, Thiam, who leads the main opposition party, the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), condemned what he described as an escalating campaign to stifle the opposition, using both security forces and judicial means.

On the same day, around a thousand supporters gathered at the PDCI headquarters in Abidjan to once again protest Thiam’s exclusion from the upcoming vote, scheduled for October 25. At the end of April, an Ivorian court ruled Thiam ineligible, removing him from the electoral list on the grounds that he was not an Ivorian citizen at the time of his registration in 2022. In total, four prominent opposition figures have been barred from running in the presidential race.

“The government is intensifying its efforts to silence the voices of the opposition by using both law enforcement and the courts,” said Thiam, a 62-year-old international banker, who has been outside the country for over a month. He called on the government to end what he described as a crackdown on civil society and to commit to holding free, fair, and inclusive elections. Meanwhile, his own position as party president is reportedly under threat.