Former Ivory Coast President, Laurent Gbagbo has announced his bid to contest for President again despite being ruled out as ineligible.
Gbagbo, who was president from 2000 to 2011, would like to represent the African People’s Party–Cote d’Ivoire (PPA-CI) but is barred from running because of a 20-year jail sentence for looting the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO) in 2011 during a bloody post-election crisis that left 3,000 dead.
Even if he was acquitted in 2021 by the International Criminal Court of human rights abuses allegedly committed during the crisis and pardoned by President Alassane Ouattara a year later for the BCEAO case, he has not been amnestied, which bars him from electoral lists.
But on Saturday, Gbagbo claimed he was not guilty and would release documents in the coming days to “reveal the truth.”
So far, Gbabgo is the only political heavyweight to have declared their candidacy as President Ouattara is yet to declare if he would run for a fourth term.
Meanwhile,Tidjane Thiam, leader of the main opposition party, is expected to be named by the Democratic Party of Cote d’Ivoire (PDCI).
