Credit:  Wikipedia Commons /  Former rebel leader Guillaume Soro is opposition leader against third Presidential candidature of Alassane Ouattara  in October 2020 Presidential Election in  West Africa nation Côte d’Ivoire.

By Gary Raynaldo    DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

Former Ivorian politician Guillaume Soro is calling on France President Emmanuel Macron to take a stand against Alassane Ouattara, the outgoing president of Côte d’Ivoire who is seeking a third term while the constitution limits to two the number of terms.  Soro has been excluded from the list for the presidential election of October 31 in Côte d’Ivoire.  Soro, the former Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire addressed an open letter published to President Macron that Ivorians have noticed France’s “deafening silence” on the matter.  

“The Constitution, the foundation of our republican edifice, is being demolished. No woman, no man of goodwill, no democrat in the world can resign himself to this crime committed before our eyes against one of the most important and stable countries in Africa. You recently visited Côte d’Ivoire but are you really informed of what is happening? Disappointed, Ivorian opinion also found in very bad taste the pathetic waddling of a 75-year-old president on a dance floor, trying to coax you in this circumstance that he thought was favorable, while the social situation of the country is so worrying. We are millions and millions. We strained our ears. We have only heard silence from France.”

– Guillaume Soro 

“And what about these power militias who are now attacking peaceful demonstrators with clubs and machetes in front of the police’s complicit eyes, what about these humiliated and abused women, what about the demonstrations now banned, what to say about all of them? these abuses widely denounced by Amnesty International and by so many other NGOs?”

-Macrons Attend Dinner, Dancing in Ivory Coast’s Abidjan, Dec. 21, 2019. 

SORO Leading “Resistance” To President Ouattara in FRANCE 

In April, Soro, a high-profile  organizer of  “the resistance”  to President  Ouattara, was  sentenced to 20 years in jail on charges of embezzlement and money laundering.  An Ivory Coast court handed down the sentence to Soro which included a fine of seven million euros. Soro was tried in absentia as he currently lives in Paris.  Soro  has steadfastly denied all of the  charges against him, saying the are “trumped up”  designed to keep him from participating in the country’s scheduled presidential elections.  Soro has been  living in political exile in France  after the Republic of Ivory Coast issued an arrest warrant last December  for  Soro for  involvement in an alleged coup plot.

“Your reaction, Mr. President of the (FRANCE) Republic, will determine a part of the look that the young generation of Africans will have on France and the values ​​to which it claims to be. Is the homeland of Voltaire, Hugo, Schœlcher, Clemenceau, Jaurès, Mendès-France, General de Gaulle, and so many others still on the side of democracy and freedom? France cannot go in the direction of those who trample on the fundamental freedoms of a country. I am not asking for anything for myself: only honest and fair elections in which each candidate can run freely, so that the people can vote freely. In Côte d’Ivoire, after 60 years of Independence, the population will not accept the emergence of a worn-out power which seeks to maintain itself at all costs at the head of the State, by arbitrarily excluding from the democratic game all those who, constitutionally, are entitled to solicit popular suffrage. Mr. Ouattara, the only one who is not authorized by the Constitution, could therefore be dubbed through a pseudo-election of another age? Who could accept this?”

– Guillaume Soro

“Africa believes in France as the country of democracy and freedoms, today as yesterday. Your word is strong. It is expected, in Côte d’Ivoire and well beyond Côte d’Ivoire. France cannot go in the direction of those who trample on the fundamental freedoms of a country: it is my absolute conviction and it is also the hope of millions of women and men who believe in democracy.”

In the meantime, receive my most respectful consideration.

-Guillaume Kigbafori Soro

Deputy

President of Generations and Solidarity Peoples

Former Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire

Candidate for the October 2020 presidential election