When:
The first round of the presidential election is scheduled for 25 October 2025.
Main contenders:
Incumbent Alassane Ouattara of the ruling Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace
(RHDP), who announced his candidacy on 29 July 2025, remains the frontrunner. We expect
the 83-year-old Ouattara to secure an absolute majority in the first round. Several factors favor
his re-election:
- The definite exclusion of his primary challengers
- RHDP’s control of key state institutions
- Ouattara’s strong track record on economic growth and security
- His experience managing economic and security challenges, which are mounting due to
global and regional geopolitical tensions.
The electoral competition is substantially restricted because:
- On 8 September 2025, the Constitutional Council officially barred key opposition figures
from the October 2025 presidential election. This includes former president Laurent
Gbagbo of the Party of African People – Côte d’Ivoire (PPA-CI), and Tidjane Thiam of
the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI-RDA), RHDP’s former coalition partner.
Constitutional Council president Chantal Nanaba Camara declared both candidacies
inadmissible because the two men had been previously removed from the electoral roll:
Gbagbo due to his criminal conviction over his role in the 2010-2011 post-election
violence, and Thiam over nationality issues. In total, the Constitutional Court retained
only five out of 60 candidates. Other significant political figures excluded from the
election include Gbagbo’s former ally Charles Blé Goudé and Guillaume Soro, a
former rebel leader and Prime Minister.
- The four confirmed opposition candidates lack sufficient voter support to unseat
Ouattara, while their candidacies will further fragment the opposition. Laurent Gbagbo is
unlikely to endorse his ex-wife Simone Gbagbo, who formed her own party, the
Movement of Capable Generations (MGC). The former couple has not been on good
terms since their acrimonious divorce in 2023 and has refused to collaborate politically,
with each seeking to unify the opposition under their respective leadership. Former
commerce minister Jean-Louis Billion’s presidential ambitions provoked internal
divisions within the PDCI-RDA and ultimately led to his departure from the party. Billion
is endorsed by a coalition of eighteen minor political parties and movements called The
Democratic Congress (CODE). Similarly, Ahoua Don Mello’s candidacy prompted
Gbagbo’s PPA-CI to dismiss him from his position as the party’s executive vice-
president. Even with Gbagbo’s endorsement, Don Mello is unlikely to win broader voter
support. Henriette Lagou Adjoua garnered less than 1% of the vote at the 2015
presidential election, and her Political Partners for Peace Coalition (GP-Paix) remains
little known.
Implications for foreign businesses:
On the positive side:
- President Ouattara’s administration has maintained a business-friendly approach, and a
favorable investment climate is expected to continue should he be re-elected.
On the negative side:
- Following the Constitutional Council’s formal exclusion of Tidjane Thiam and Laurent
Gbagbo from the presidential election, both key opposition parties, PDCI-RDA and PPA-
CI, announced they do not intend to boycott the vote and will continue supporting their
excluded candidates. The two parties are likely to pressure for their leaders’ inclusion on
the candidate list through protests, which are expected to become increasingly disruptive
and violent as the election approaches. PDCI-RDA and PPA-CI already formed an
alliance in June 2025 to protest Thiam’s and Gbagbo’s exclusion from the electoral roll
and to prevent Ouattara’s fourth term. The parties are also likely to contest electoral
results through civil unrest, particularly if Thiam and Gbagbo remain ineligible, increasing
the risk of election-related violence both in the run up to the vote and after the elections.
There is a growing risk of a repeat of the electoral violence seen during the 2020
presidential election.