From left to right: Charles Blé Goudé, Laurent Gbagbo, Guillaume Soro, and Tidjane Thiam, the four candidates excluded from the October 2025 elections. Screenshot from the video “Côte d’Ivoire: The Final Electoral List” on the Tv5monde Afrique YouTube Channel

By Jeslyn Lemke

Côte d’Ivoire is preparing to hold its presidential elections in October 2025. With four candidates excluded, President Alassane Ouattara, who has been in office since 2011, is expected to run for re-election.

On June 4, 2025, the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) excluded several high-profile candidates from the electoral list on legal technicalities. These included Guillaume Soro, (independent candidate and former president of the National Assembly from 2012–2019); Laurent Gbagbo (former president of the country from 2000–2011 and candidate for the African People’s Party – Côte d'Ivoire (PPA-CI)); Tidjane Thiam (member of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast -African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA)), and Charles Blé Goudé (former minister under Laurent Gbagbo and leader of the Pan-African Congress for Justice and People’s Equality (COJE).

In addition to the exclusion of these four candidates, French and Russian disinformation campaigns mean Côte d’Ivoire’s October elections are set to take place amid considerable tension.

An opposition party alliance

On June 19, two opposition parties with excluded candidates, the PDCI and PPA-CI, formed an alliance, showing a united front against the governing party, the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP).

After amending the Constitution in 2016 to allow himself to run for a third term, President Alassane Ouattara, 83, has led the country for 15 years. For the October 2025 elections, the RHDP selected Ouattara as its candidate. However, thus far, he has been reluctant to disclose publicly whether he will seek reelection.

Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, President of the Capable Generations Movement (MGC), and Pascal Affi Nguessan, President of the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), are the two opposition candidates facing Ouattara at the polls.

According to David Youant, an Ivorian journalist and director of the Alerte Info press agency, opposition parties excluded from the electoral process still receive considerable support from the civilian population, including military personnel. In an interview with Global Voices, he explained:

La jeunesse est frustrée, les soldats démobilisés lors de la dernière guerre civile de 2010 et les chômeurs constituent un solide soutien des militaires au PDCI et au PPA-CI, qui cherchent à apaiser leur colère contre le régime Ouattara. On n'aura pas besoin d'être un marabout pour savoir que, forcément, il y aura des bagarres.

The frustrated youth, unemployed, and demobilized troops from the civil war in 2010 are a solid support base for PDCI and PPA–CI members seeking to ease the discontent over the Ouattara regime. You don’t need to be a psychic to know there will be public disorder.

Youant describes the current climate on the streets of Abidjan (the de facto capital of Côte d’Ivoire) as calm. People are going about their daily business, going on vacation, shopping, and students are attending classes as normal. He added:

Pour le moment, dans les actes, dans les comportements, on ne sent pas la panique. Les gens ne font pas de provisions. Il n’y a pas de tensions réelles. Mais il y a des craintes de la crise sur une possible crise post-électorale, la majorité des Ivoiriens ne veut pas revivre ce qui s'est passé en 2010-2011.

At the moment, there’s no sign of panic in people’s actions or behavior. They aren’t stocking up. Although there’s no real tension, there are fears of a potential post-electoral crisis. Most Ivorians don’t want to relive what happened in 2010–2011.

Following the 2010 presidential elections, the Independent Electoral Commission(CEI) declared Alassane Ouattara the winner, while the Constitutional Council proclaimed Laurent Gbagbo as such. This contradictory result divided the Ivorian population, causing a post-electoral crisis that led to Laurent Gbagbo’s arrest and imprisonment at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Read more: Cameroonian journalist revisits the 2010–2011 Ivorian political crisis in a documentary

In April, PDCI and PPA-CI withdrew from the Electoral Commission, arguing the CEI is no longer objective and operates under the control of Ouattara’s government.

Online, tensions are mounting among cyber activists, disinformation campaigns are proliferating, and political commentaries indicate widespread concern about a potential coup d'état. On X, the Mel Essis Kouadio account shared a video of Ibrahima Cissé Bacongo, the Governor of the Autonomous District of Abidjan, and questioned the motivations behind his remarks.

HANN 🇨🇮
🔴 CISSÉ BACONGO :

« TIDJANE THIAM et LAURENT GBAGBO disent qu'ils veulent faire un COUP D'ÉTAT . Mais on les attend »

Attendez ! vous êtes sûrs qu'il se porte bien? #CIV225 pic.twitter.com/KRsCWDgIYp

— Mel Essis Kouadio (@MelEssisKouadio) June 9, 2025

HANN 🇨🇮
🔴 CISSÉ BACONGO:

“TIDJANE THIAM and LAURENT GBAGBO say they want to conduct a COUP D'ÉTAT. Yet, we’re still waiting.”

Hold on! Are you sure he’s alright? #CIV225 pic.twitter.com/KRsCWDgIYp

Intense disinformation on social media

In May, rumors of a coup d'état in Abidjan spread on social media, raising concerns among the international community. This followed the arrest of well-known cyber activist Souleymane Gbagbo Koné in France in March 2025, who, according to fake news, was allegedly sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for speaking out against Ouattara’s government.

According to a 2024 report by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, there were 189 disinformation campaigns in Africa between 2022 and 2024. Historically unstable countries are often targets of such campaigns, 60 percent of which have foreign state sponsors like Russia and China. The report states:

La Russie demeure le principal vecteur de désinformation en Afrique, parrainant 80 campagnes documentées ciblant plus de 22 pays. Cela représente près de 40 % de toutes les campagnes de désinformation en Afrique.

Russia remains the primary driver of disinformation in Africa, sponsoring 80 documented campaigns targeting more than 22 countries. This accounts for almost 40 percent of all disinformation campaigns in Africa.

From January to June 2025, Ivoirecheck, an Ivorian fact-checking organization combating disinformation on social networks, debunked several election-related disinformation posts. For example, on May 16, 2025, the Le Liptako Gourma account on X posted an image falsely claiming to show French Foreign Legion soldiers training in Côte d'Ivoire:

Alerte🚨urgent🚨signalée :
c'est des légionnaires français en trainés dans la forêt ivoirienne et prêts à lancer l'assaut sur le Burkina Faso.
Il faut élever le niveau d'alerte.
Ils travailleront sur deux fronts en même temps. La frontière ivoirienne et la frontière béninoise pic.twitter.com/XdDJx4V7TY

— Le Liptako Gourma (@LiptakoGourma3) May 16, 2025

Urgent 🚨Alert🚨:
These are French Foreign Legion soldiers training in the Ivorian forest and ready to attack Burkina Faso.
We must raise the alert level.
They’ll be working on two fronts simultaneously: the Ivorian and Beninese borders. pic.twitter.com/XdDJx4V7TY

IvoireCheck‘s fact-checking work made it possible to refute this information, which sparked a host of online reactions. In an article, Ivoirecheck wrote:

Une publication partagée sur X, par la page dénommée  Le Liptako de Gouma, a généré plus de 80 000 vues, 290 likes, et 110 retweets déclenchant un débat animé sur une supposée formation des Légionnaires Français en Côte d’Ivoire dans le but d’attaquer le Burkina Faso. Sur l’image de piètre qualité qui accompagne la publication, on peut observer des individus  armés, vêtus de tenues militaires, de gilets et casques dans une zone arborée.

On X, Le Liptako de Gouma shared a post that received 80,000 views, 290 likes, and 110 retweets, sparking a heated debate on French legionnaires allegedly training in Côte d’Ivoire for an attack on Burkina Faso. The poor-quality image accompanying this post shows armed individuals in a wooded area, dressed in military attire, vests, and helmets.

Code for Africa, the continent’s largest network of civic technology and data journalism laboratories with teams in 21 countries, has also allocated resources to disinformation monitoring in Côte d'Ivoire ahead of this year’s elections.

In an interview with BBC Afrique, Mohamed Kébé, an Ivorian fact-checker and journalist, confirms the spread of fake news in the lead-up to the Ivorian elections. He stated:

le contexte électoral semble donner du grain à moudre aux personnes qui diffusent les fake news. (…) on sent une montée fulgurante des fausses informations à l'approche de la présidentielle ivoirienne. Il y a des personnes qui sont intéressées par la manipulation de l'information en lien avec la présidentielle.

Electoral campaigns seem to give people who spread fake news something to sink their teeth into. False information has risen dramatically in the lead-up to the Ivorian presidential elections. Some people love the idea of manipulating information online.

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