Credit:  Wikipedia Commons /  Former rebel leader Guillaume Soro is a candidate in next year’s Presidential Election in  West Africa nation Côte d’Ivoire.

By Gary Raynaldo      –  DIPLOMATIC TIMES

Exiled former Ivorian Prime Minister Guillaume Soro has been given the ok to return to his home country, it was reported Thursday. Soro has been exiled nearly four years in Europe. While in exile in 2020, the former presidential candidate who vowed  to  organize “the resistance”  to President Alassane Ouattara ahead of that year’s October elections,  was sentenced to 20 years in jail on charges of embezzlement and money laundering.  “Guillaume Soro can return whenever he wants, indeed, the country is open,”  government spokesperson Amadou Coulibaly stated, according to africannews.com.  Earlier this month, Soro stated his intention to return home.  “I am announcing here and now that I am putting an end to my exile because it’s hard for me to live far from my ancestral and native land of Africa,” Soro said in a statement published on social media.    The former politician has been  living in political exile after the Republic of Ivory Coast issued an arrest warrant for  Soro for  involvement in an alleged coup plot. Ahead of the election,  Soro had called on defence and security forces in the West African nation to block President Alassane Ouattara’s third term.  Ouattara  won re-election as President of Ivory Coast after a controversial  election in view of the Ivorian constitution limits presidents to two terms.  The main opposition candidates boycotted the election and called on supporters to stay at home as an act of civil disobedience.  Soro has been a thorn in the side of Ouattara since initially being exiled to France.