Ivory Coast's former President Henri Konan Bedie will run for the office again after agreeing to represent the main opposition party at October's polls, he said in a speech Saturday.
Bedie, who presided over the world's top cocoa producer from 1993 until he was overthrown in a 1999 coup, is now expected to be the candidate of the PDCI-RDA, pitting him against President Alassane Ouattara's hand-picked successor, Prime Minister Amadou Gon Coulibaly.
The party is scheduled to hold its convention July 25-26.
“I'm at once surprised and happy that you've asked me to be our party's candidate,” Bedie, 86, who is the party leader, said in the speech. “I hope that you will do the groundwork to ensure that all statutory members give me a resounding victory on the night of July 26.”
Bedie backed Ouattara in two previous elections but withdrew his party from the ruling coalition in 2018 when Ouattara said a new constitution adopted in 2016 could allow him a third term.
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