The Ivorian judiciary suspended at the last minute the congress of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI), the country's main opposition party, in power from 1960 to 1999, which was due to elect its new leader on Saturday.

The court ordered "the suspension and postponement of the PDCI congress scheduled to be held on Saturday, December 16, 2023," according to an order from the summary judge of the Abidjan court, dated Friday and seen by AFP.

The party's former leader, Henri Konan Bédié, president of Côte d'Ivoire from 1993 to 1999, died in August at the age of 89 and did not rule out running for president in 2025.

The judge declared admissible the complaint of two activists who denounced irregularities in the list of congressmen called on Saturday between the Ivorian-French banker Tidjane Thiam and the mayor of the Abidjan commune of Cocody, Jean-Marc Yacé, to lead the PDCI.

The decision also points to the risks of "disturbing public order" to justify the postponement of the congress.

"The PDCI expresses its great indignation and condemns in the strongest possible terms these practices from another time that undermine democracy and freedoms," party spokesman Soumaïla Bredoumy said on Saturday afternoon, calling on activists "not to give in to provocation".

Police cordon

A large police cordon was deployed on Saturday morning in front of the party's headquarters in Abidjan, preventing dozens of congressmen from all over the country from entering. Police officers were also deployed around the Ivoire Hotel where everything had been prepared to host the congress.

In front of the headquarters, the two candidates took turns calling on the activists to remain calm in the morning.

A message heard by the activists who, massed behind the police cordon, nevertheless deplored this last-minute cancellation of the congress.

"We came to keep our party alive. We no longer have the right to choose our own president? It's incomprehensible," lamented Ramata Gnamien.

"Two activists are blocking the election of a political party. We are in disarray, we are outside, in the street in front of our own house and we can't go in," said Marie-Lise N'Zi, who came from Dimbokro, in the centre of the country.

Opacity

This week, several PDCI leaders such as Jean-Louis Billon and Thierry Tanoh criticised the opacity of the electoral process.

A third candidate, Maurice Kacou Guikahue, announced earlier this week that he was withdrawing, also deploring a lack of transparency.

With this congress, the PDCI hoped to rejuvenate its image by electing a president in his sixties - Tidjane Thiam and Jean-Marc Yacé are respectively 61 and 62 years old - which is considered young to hold high political office in Côte d'Ivoire.

With the support of some 63 MPs out of the party's 255 in the 2025-seat National Assembly, Tidjane Thiam, former CEO of Credit Suisse, is the favourite to become the new leader of the opposition and prepare for <>.

"We can change the formula, we can change the date, I will be a candidate," Thiam said on Saturday.

The former single party, that of the father of independence Félix Houphouët Boigny, has not acceded to the supreme magistracy since 1999. A coup d'état ousted Henri Konan Bédié from power.

Once allied with Alassane Ouattara, who has been in power since 2011, the PDCI regained its place in the opposition in 2018 and boycotted the last presidential election.

"There has to be as little breakage as possible. After the elections, we must be united to position ourselves for 2025. We are at a crossroads," a party official said before the postponement.

With AFP

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