Ivory Coast’s nationalist former president, Henri Konan Bedie has died.
He was 89yrs old and had , with the possibility of a return to power, according to his party.
The “Ivory Coast Democratic Party-African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) is deeply saddened to announce the sudden death of Bedie in hospital in Abidjan Tuesday,” said his party in a statement.
A crowd had begun to gather outside his residence in the capital according to AFP.
A career politician born in 1934 to a family of cocoa planters, Bedie was the chosen successor to Ivory Coast’s founding father Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who ruled over the west African nation from independence from France in 1960 until his death in 1993, aged 88.
Bedie served as president from 1993 until 1999 when he was overthrown by the military in the country’s first-ever coup.
Dubbed the “Sphinx of Daoukro” after his native town and economy with words, Bedie demonstrated a skill for political survival. He tried unsuccessfully to return as president in 2000, 2010 and 2020.
“For us in the PDCI, age is an asset. Age unites experience and also competence,” Bedie told journalists ahead of the October 2020 presidential election, which was won by current President Alassane Ouattara amid an opposition boycott. Bedie came third with 1.7 percent of the vote.
Bedie, whose rivalry with Ouattara dates back three decades, had not ruled out running in the country’s next presidential election in 2025.
He came third in the 2010 presidential elections, behind Ouattara and then incumbent Laurent Gbagbo.
He supported Ouattara in the post-election crisis, and for his first six years in power, but fell out with him again.
The wily octogenarian had been able to discourage all attempts by younger generations to replace him within his party, which had nominated him as its candidate for the 2020 ballot.
A party executive said he was “a fine tactician who weathered all storms” and was able to convince “the young guns” of the PDCI to support him again.