ABIDJAN (Reuters) -A court in Ivory Coast ruled on Tuesday that opposition leader and former Credit Suisse Chief Executive Tidjane Thiam should be removed from the electoral roll because he was a French national when he registered, his lawyer said.
The decision, which cannot be appealed, could end the Ivorian-born Thiam’s ambition to run in the world’s top cocoa-producing nation’s presidential election, expected in October.
“Given his French nationality and in accordance with Article 48 of the Ivorian Nationality Code, he was no longer Ivorian at the time he registered on the electoral roll,” Thiam’s lawyer told Reuters.
Thiam said in a statement following the decision that he is now calling on political leaders on all sides to engage in talks to break the deadlock.
“Ivorians expect the judicial system to guarantee peaceful, transparent and credible elections, not to serve as an instrument for a regime seeking to hoard power and silence its critics,” he said.
“The ruling party has used the courts to eliminate its most serious rival, while maintaining the illusion of due process. … Make no mistake about it, this decision is an act of democratic vandalism, which will disenfranchise millions of voters,” he said.
In 2023, Thiam was elected leader of PDCI, one of the country’s main opposition parties, making him a likely candidate for the presidential election.
He renounced his French citizenship in February in order to meet eligibility conditions for the election and announced that he would be a candidate. Ivory Coast law states that candidates must be Ivorian citizens and cannot hold another nationality.
Last month, a decision published in France’s official journal showed that Thiam had been relieved of his French citizenship.
(Reporting by Ange Aboa and Loucoumane Coulibaly; Writing by Anait Miridzhanian and Portia Crowe; Editing by Bate Felix, Mark Heinrich and Mark Porter)
