Amadou Coulibaly, spokesperson for the Ivorian government, addressed the removal of Tidjane Thiam from the provisional electoral roll during the weekly press briefing following the Council of Ministers meeting held Wednesday at the Presidential Palace.
On Tuesday, April 22, 2025, the Court of First Instance ordered that Tidjane Thiam—the president of the PDCI-RDA and declared candidate for the October 2025 presidential election—be removed from the electoral list. The decision stems from legal challenges related to the compilation of the provisional electoral roll.
Several appeals, filed notably by individuals reportedly close to the ruling RHDP party, questioned Thiam’s dual nationality status at the time of his registration. “The judiciary has ruled. We respect this decision,” stated Amadou Coulibaly, adding that the ruling is based on Article 48 of the Ivorian Nationality Code—a legal provision already cited in similar past cases.
The minister referred specifically to the 2011 precedent known as the “Tioté jurisprudence,” which involved Professor Francis Wodié, a respected legal scholar and former president of the Constitutional Council. “This article has been applied before, and it is being applied again today. There’s nothing exceptional about it,” Coulibaly emphasized.
Dismissing accusations of political interference, Coulibaly defended the independence of the Ivorian judiciary. “It’s easy to assume the State is behind everything, but I assure you the President of the Republic is committed to building a true rule-of-law State, grounded in respect for the Constitution and judicial decisions. Some opposition figures may see this as a political maneuver, but that’s not how democracies function,” he stated.
With this exclusion, Tidjane Thiam joins a growing list of opposition figures barred from participating in the 2025 presidential race, including Laurent Gbagbo, Charles Blé Goudé, and Guillaume Soro.