On Saturday, Ivory Coast President Alassane Ouattara slammed longtime rival Laurent Gbagbo as part of pushing for a settlement with his predecessor ahead of the 2025 elections. He said he had applied for a presidential pardon.
Gbagbo, who was president from 2000 to 2011, spoke in The Hague in 2019 about his role in the civil war sparked by his refusal to admit defeat after the 2010 elections. He returned to Ivory Coast last year after being acquitted of war crimes charges.
Returning home, he still faces his 20-year prison sentence for his 2019 conviction in connection with the robbery of funds from the central bank of Abidjan during the post-election period. Was. He always denies the charges.
"To further strengthen social cohesion, I have signed a decree granting a presidential pardon to Laurent Gbagbo," Ouattara said in a televised address to the nation ahead of Sunday's Independence Day.
He also said he sought the unfreezing of Gbagbo's accounts and the payment of arrears on the president's life annuity.
The decision follows a rare meeting between Ouattara, Gbagbo and former president Henri Conan Bedi in July.
This trio has dominated Ivory Coast's troubled political scene since the 1990s. Bedi served as president from 1993 until he was ousted in a coup in 1999.
Tensions rose most dramatically after the 2010 elections. Gbagbo's refusal to admit defeat sparked a brief civil war that killed about 3,000 people before Ouattara-allied rebels stormed the main city of Abidjan.
Ouattara has maintained relative stability during his ten years in power. But dozens were killed in clashes that erupted before and after the 2020 elections. He ran for his third term, which Gbagbo and Bedi said was unconstitutional.
The president has yet to reveal whether he plans to run for his fourth term in 2025. He said he wanted to resign, but also suggested that Gbagbo and Bedi would need to commit to withdrawing from politics. to do so.
They have so far not shown what their plans are.
