Credit: Wikipedia Commons /  Ivory Coast VP Daniel Kablan Duncan  

By Gary Raynaldo   DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Cote d’Ivoire’s Vice President Daniel Kablan Duncan has resigned for “personal reasons”, the government of the  west African nation announced on Monday.  The surprise announcement further plunged the country into political turmoil less that a week after the sudden death of Ivory Coast’s Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly.   The deceased prime minister  was the president’s chosen successor as the ruling party’s presidential candidate in the October.   “The President of the Republic proceeded on Wednesday, July 8, to the signing of a decree terminating the functions of Daniel Kablan Duncan as vice president of the Republic”, announced Patrick Achi, the secretary general of the presidency. 

“Le Président de la République, Alassane Ouattara, qui a signé le décret de démission de Daniel Kablan Duncan, le 08 juillet 2020, a rendu hommage à « un grand serviteur de l’Etat, un homme de devoir et d’engagement.   Le Chef de l’Etat a, par ailleurs, félicité Daniel Kablan Duncan pour son importante contribution à ses côtés et au service de la nation, successivement, en tant que ministre d’Etat, ministre des Affaires étrangères, Premier Ministre et Vice-Président.”

-Secrétaire général de la Présidence, Patrick Achi

Déclaration du Secrétaire Général de la Présidence de la République ce lundi 13 juillet 2020. pic.twitter.com/OE0gPyT50j

— Alassane Ouattara (@AOuattara_PRCI) July 13, 2020

 Kablan, 77, previously served as prime minister from December 1993 to December 1999 and from November 2012 to January 2017.

Will President Alassane Ouattara Seek a Third Term in October’s Election? 

Ivory Coast is in a state of political chaos at the moment.   President Ouattara announced in March that he would not stand for re-election after 10 years in office and designated his closest ally prime minister Gon Coulibaly, as the RHDP party’s candidate. The only other declared candidates for the October election are 86-year-old former President Henri Konan Bedie and ex-Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, who is in exile in Europe and not likely  to return to the country after being sentenced to 20 years in prison in absentia on charges on charges of embezzlement and money laundering.  But anything is likely.  Soro maintains he is innocent and that the charges were trumped up to keep him from running in October’s presidential election. 

Credit:  alchetron.com/    Guillaume Kigbafori Soro, former head of the rebellion in West African nation Ivory Coast, and Prime Minister

Leaders from Ivory Coast’s ruling party agreed at a closed-door meeting last Wednesday to press President Alassane Ouattara to seek a third term in October’s presidential election, Africanews.com.  That would make a lot of folk in Ivory Coast angry.  France and the United States think Ouattara, a former economist, and IMF managing director, has done a good job in maintaining political and economic stability in the  country. But many Ivorians view Ouattara as tool the country’s old colonial master, France, and that nothing has changed to better their lives since he became president after disputed elections in 2010.  Many feel Ouattara was installed as president with the assistance of France and the United Nations to force the former president Laurent Gbagbo permanently out of the political scene. 

International Criminal Court Clears Former President Gbagbo To Return Home To Ivory Coast  

Credit:  Credit:  ©ICC-CPI/   Former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands.

The International Criminal Court  in May eased conditions on the release of former Ivory Coast president Laurent Gbagbo following his acquittal of war crimes charges that would allow him to return to  his home in west-African where presidential elections are to be held October.  The ICC authorized Gbagbo and the former head of the Young Ivorian Patriots, Charles Blé Goudé, to leave Brussels and The Hague, under certain conditions.  Gbagbo and  Blé Goudé were charged with four counts of crimes against humanity, including murder, rape, and other inhumane acts, or – in the alternative – attempted murder and persecution stemming from post-electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire between December 16, 2010 and April 12, 2011.  Both Gbagbo, residing in Brussels,  and  Blé Goudé, living in The Hague,  have expressed a strong desire to return to their home country.  Will  Soro and Gbagbo return to  Ivory Coast to stand in the October election?  Stay tuned.