CÔTE D’IVOIRE: Hopes dashed for a new era

At one point, hope seemed likeliest in Côte d’Ivoire. In March, President Alassane Dramane Ouattara seemed to settle fears that he would run for a third term, announcing that he would not stand in the October presidential election. But in August, Ouattara performed a screeching U-turn and announced that he would stand for an unconstitutional third term. The change of heart came after his preferred successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly, died suddenly in July. Ouattara positioned his candidacy as a ‘sacrifice’ but said he was responding ‘to the call of my fellow citizens’. He asserted that his first two terms did not count towards the limit, since a new constitution had been adopted in 2016; this is the way term limits have been erased in country after country across the continent and around the world.