Ivorian Opposition Accuses President Ouattara Of Using The Courts To Disqualify His Principal Challengers In The 2025 Presidential Election (Part 2)

Laurent GBAGBO launches a resistance movement, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, to fight back ALASSANE OUTTARA’s mafia, amidst fear that Ivory Coast Is sliding back   into another war over election.

Calls are being made for ECOWAS and United Nations to intervene and diffuse the present tense political situation in Ivory Coast, and thus avoid another blood bath over election  

Following his release from the 10 year detention at The Hague in 2021, former Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo, returned to Abidjan, Ivory Coat in 2022, where he received a hilarious welcome. His supporters gave him grandiose reception, indeed.

Also worth noting that despite the fact that Laurent Gbagbo was forcefully removed from power in 2011 because of Alassane Ouattara, despite the public humiliation Gbagbo and his wife were subjected to in 2011 because of Ouattara, despite the fact that he was made to spend 10 years on pre – trial detention at The Hague for no crime committed, Gbagbo from all indications returned to Ivory Coast with a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness.

Gbagbo accepted President Outtara’s invitation for a meeting, and went over and met him. Both men discussed appeasement, reconciliation and all what not. But nothing concrete finally came out of the talks, as President Ouattara did not fulfill Gbagbo’s request that he release all his former close collaborators that the Ouattara government sent to jail in purported connection to the post – election violence of 2010 – 2011.  Gbagbo urged that they should be released in line with the path of appeasement that they agreed to pursue. But Ouattara did not release those former Gbagbo’s collaborators in prison.

Gbagbo And Wife Divorce / Create New Political Parties

Meanwhile apparently just like Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Laurent Gbagbo and his wife or longtime partner, Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, quietly divorced a couple of months after Gbagbo returned to  Ivory Coast. The divorce was done in such a matured, that many people initially doubted the story. Worthy of note that last year, Laurent Gbagbo got married to a former longtime close collaborator.

In the political domain, Simone Ehivet Gbagbo who was also a very politically active and strong woman left her husband’s party FPI, that is, the Ivorian Popular Front. She launched her own political movement, MGC, which was actually a new political party. This was even done before the divorce.  Laurent Gbagbo followed later, by leaving FPI and creating a new political party, PPI – CI, that is, the African People’s Party.  For the 10 years that Laurent Gbagbo was on pre-trial detention at The Hague, and thus absent from the country, FPI was being run by collaborators or fellow comrades that he left behind, and who along the line had positioned themselves. It happened that when Gbagbo returned to Ivory Coast, he along the line made it known that he would be a candidate at the 2025 presidential election. That did not go down well with the leadership of FPI Party.

In reaction to the opposition to his presence that he started feeling in the FPI, Gbagbo publicly told his faithful supporters that: “If they no longer want us in the party, we should quietly go us away”.  In early 2024, Laurent Gbagbo announced the creation of a new political party, the PPI – CI, and soon followed with the announcement that he would run in the 2025 presidential election.

Disqualification Of Candidacies

But to the greatest embarrassment of the former Ivorian President, Laurent Gbagbo, the court recently indicated that he cannot be a candidate at the 2025 presidential election in Ivory Coast. According to the court, the reason is that the sentence which the Abidjan court slammed against him, under the influence the Ouattara government when he on detention at The Hague, has not yet been annulled. So despite the fact that the International Criminal Court discharged and acquitted Gbagbo of the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, President Ouattara has till date not ordered his court to annul the shameful sentence that was slammed against his predecessor.  It is for a similar reason that the candidacies of Simone Ehivet  Gbagbo and Charles Ble Goude, have also been  disqualified by  the court. President Ouattara viciously pretends that the judiciary is independent, and that he cannot give instructions to the court or to a judge.

Launching Of A Resistance Movement, TROP C’EST TROP’ (ENOUGH IS ENOUGH) 

 An emergency meeting of the Central Committee of Laurent Gbagbo’s party, PPA – CI, held in Abidjan on Saturday, April 26, 2025. Boiling with rage, Gbagbo declared that he has tolerated too much from Allassane Ouattara, and that enough is enough. Gbagbo launched a movement known as, ‘TROP C’EST TROP’, that is, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH”. It is a resistant movement against Ouattara’s mafia to exclude other Ivorian sons and daughters from enjoying their democratic rights.

Gbagbo fumed that he was unjustly removed from power in 2011, and sent to The Hague on false charges linked to the post –election violence of 2010 – 2011. Gbagbo said it is totally inadmissible that the International Criminal Court should discharge and acquit him of the charges after 10 years in pre-trial detention, and then back in Ivory Coast he should be excluded from election in connection to a so called judicial sentencing linked to the same post – election violence of 2010 – 2011, on which the ICC discharged and acquitted him.

Calls On ECOWAS And UN To Intervene

It should be noted that opposition parties in Ivory Coast created a group or forum known as ‘Cap – Cote d’Ivoire’. The opposition group has been crying out against what it terms mascaraed in the electoral process. Even the Electoral Commission is repeatedly denounced for operating more like a branch of the ruling party, instead of asserting its independence as it is supposed to be.

Meanwhile, some concerned persons in Ivory Coast have started calling on the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, and the United States, to intervene and diffuse the bomb in the country by bringing the different parties to the dialogue table.  That the international organizations should not wait for the bomb to explode, before they come in, when lives would have been lose.