Tidjane Thiam, former CEO of Credit Suisse and a prominent presidential hopeful, has been disqualified from running in Ivory Coast’s upcoming election, due to his dual Ivorian-French nationality. The ruling was delivered on Tuesday, April 22, by an Ivorian court, which determined that Thiam forfeited his Ivorian citizenship upon acquiring French nationality in 1987, a position upheld by petitioners seeking his exclusion from the electoral roll.
The decision follows a broader legal context in which ten similar appeals were recently dismissed by the Independent Electoral Commission (CEI) on procedural grounds. Despite having secured his party’s nomination in an uncontested vote last week, Thiam has now been officially removed from the list of eligible candidates. His legal representative, Ange Rodrigue Dadjé, confirmed that the court’s president granted the petitioners’ request without further legal challenge being submitted by Thiam’s team.
In a video shared on social media, Thiam denounced the ruling as unjust and pledged to resist what he described as an undemocratic decision. Emphasising his resolve to defend the democratic right of Ivorians to choose their next leader freely, he vowed to contest the outcome through all available means. With the presidential election scheduled for October, the ruling marks a significant development in a country still healing from the aftermath of its contentious 2020 vote, which was marred by violence and widespread opposition boycotts.