Ivory Coast: President Ouattara launches new umbrella party, indicates he will step down in 2020

AFP | Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) President Alassane Ouattara on Monday made clear he will not seek re-election in 2020 as he launched a new umbrella party that he said would help ensure continuity.

The move will turn the Houphouetists Rally for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), currently the ruling coalition, into a formal party.

Named in honor of the country’s founding leader, the party held its constitutive assembly Monday in Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abidjan, adopting the new party’s statutes unanimously after one hour of debate.

The new party groups Ouattara’s own Rally of Republicans (RDR) with the Union for Democracy and Peace (UDPCI), which has 6 MPs in parliament, as well as figures from other parties.

Speaking to the assembly on Monday, Ouattara made an appeal to UPDCI leader Henri Konan Bedie, saying: “We must stay together,” recalling past victories won thanks to unity, notably during a post-election crisis in 2010-11.

Ouattara, 76, drew thunderous applause when he said: “We must work, president Bedie and I, to transfer power to a new generation in 2020.”

The comments laid to rest speculation over whether Ouattara would seek re-election despite a 2-term limit under the constitution.
Bedie, who is 84 and served as president from 1993 to 1999, has not revealed his intentions.