The authorities cancelled a meeting of his party, the Pan-African Congress for Justice and Equality of Peoples (Cojep), which was scheduled for Sunday (November 26th) in Yopougon, a working-class district of Abidjan, due to a "security risk". Faced with the reasons put forward by the authorities, Charles Blé Goudé says he "wonders", noting that other sporting, cultural and political events may have been held on the same day. "I didn't understand why this double standard," he said in an interview with France 24.

As for former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, who is back on African soil (Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali) from where he strongly criticises the regime of Alassane Ouattara, he says that "Côte d'Ivoire is emerging from a trauma". For him, "we don't need to be scared again. I ask that all this be resolved through dialogue." As for Soro, who has been in exile since 2019 and is facing a life sentence for endangering state security, he urged him to avoid giving the impression "that from one moment to the next, we can attack. The culture of weapons must be banned."

Charles Blé Goudé, who returned to Côte d'Ivoire a year ago, says his 20-year prison sentence for crimes related to the 2010-2011 post-election crisis is a political conviction that must be resolved politically. Laurent Gbagbo, his former mentor, was granted a presidential pardon in August 2022 in the case. Charles Blé Goudé's is still in the hands of Alassane Ouattara. And Charles Blé Goudé has no doubt that a compromise is possible to allow him to be a candidate in the presidential election scheduled for 2025. "2025 is the end of a generation. 2025 won't be written without me," he said.

Asked about his distancing from former president Laurent Gbagbo, he said: "You don't stay a lieutenant for life. You become a colonel and then one day a general. I'm no longer a lieutenant, I'm the leader of a political party."

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