Why rumors about the Ivory Coast coup this week? | Conflict news

Fake stories of a coup appeared in the West African State in Ivory Coast this week amid escalating tensions during the upcoming general elections in October.

Several accounts were published on social media, including Facebook and X, videos of huge crowds in the streets with burning buildings, which they claimed are from the commercial capital in the country, Abidjan.

However, no violence was reported by the security forces or any other government authorities in the city this week. Abidjan residents also denied social media claims.

On Thursday, the National Agency for Information Systems in Ivory Coast (ANSSI) denied rumors.

In a statement published on local media sites, the agency said: “The publications that are currently taking place on the X network claim that the coup has occurred in Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) … This claim is unfounded. It is the result of the campaign of deliberate and coordinated misinformation.”

The rumors come a few weeks after the popular opposition’s politician, Tijan Takham, to run for positions after he faced his parents in court because of a technique related to his nationality. Thiam appeals to the ruling and claims that the ban is political.

Ivory Coast, Cocoa Power in Africa, has a long history of electoral violence, with one episode a decade ago to an armed conflict that led to thousands of deaths.

Fears that President Hassan Uatara may run for a fourth period, adding to tensions this time. Although the country has a period of time for the presidents, the constitutional amendment in 2016 resets the hour according to its conditions, the president’s supporters argue with it, which allowed him to run for a period of three years in 2020.

Here is what we know about the current political situation in the country:

How did the coup rumors start?

Videos showing hundreds of people appearing in the streets and putting fires to stores and shopping centers began to appear on social media on Wednesday of this week. French is the official language in Ivory Coast, but most of the publications and blogs that have pictures claim to be from Abidjan and claimed that the coup was under progress in the English language.

Some jobs also claimed that the chief of staff of the country’s army, Lasina Dumbia, was assassinated and that President Wattara was missing. These allegations were incorrect and were rejected by the President’s office. The reliable media, including the Ivorian government media and the private media, have not complied with alleged violence.

It is unclear how rumors that miss President Uatara. On Thursday, he chaired the routine cabinet meeting in the capital. He also attended a ceremony celebrating the distinguished former president, Felix Hofuit-Benny, along with President Al-Tajouli Four Ghannasing.

Why are political tensions in the country?

The next public elections on October 25 are the root of current political tensions in the country.

In the past, the elections were violent: during the general elections in October 2010, former President Laurent Gibagbo refused to hand over power to Uatara, which was announced by the winner’s electoral committee.

The strained political negotiations failed, and in the end the situation rose to the armed civil war, with the Uatara forces, supported by the French forces, and besieged the national army in Gibagbo. France is the former colonial authority in the Ivory Coast, and Uatara shines close ties with Paris.

About 3,000 people were killed in violence. GBAGBO on April 11, 2011 was the end of the conflict. It was later tried and overland By the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes in 2019.

This painful history has stimulated the fears that this year’s surveys can convert violently, as many opposition candidates, including GBAGBO, have been prevented from running, mainly due to previous condemnation. In 2018, the former president was sentenced in the absence of 20 years in prison for the looting of the central bank of West Africa (BCEAO) during the post -election crisis in the country.

Last December, the Rhdtara Party for Democracy and Peace Party was nominated for its fourth chapter as president. Until now, Outetara refused to determine whether he intends to run, raising concerns among the Eporidians, many of whom feel that the president has surpassed his welcome. Analysts see the party’s nomination as the way to ultimately pave the way for its nomination.

Analysts also say that there is widespread sympathy for the young military leaders who seized power in Mali and Burkina Faso, who have maintained a hostile position towards France, unlike Wattara.

What is the popular view of Hotara?

It has been praised for his supervision of rapid economic stability in the past and half, which made the country the regional economic axis.

Ouattara also stops bringing in the level of some political peace to the country. In 2023, he welcomed GBAGBO, who has lived in Brussels since ICC’s acquittal of 2021. Since then, the electoral campaigns have not been inflamed as they were in the first decade of the twentieth century when GBAGBO played ethnic feelings to incite Ouattara, whose father was originally from Burkina Faso.

However, Oouattara’s critics accuse him of fighting in order to hold power unconstitutionally. Some also accuse him of coercing state institutions on the railways of its political opponents, including in the latest issue that involves the second.

His convergence with France, which is increasingly seen as a new arrogant and collective, especially by young people throughout West African Frankovon, did not win the president in any known country in the country under the age of 35.

Who is Tidjane Thiam, and why was he prevented from elections?

Tham, 62 years old, politician and a prominent businessman in the Ivorian political circles. He is the son of Houfhouet-Boigny, the first Idori, the first admission exam to the prestigious technical engineering school in France. He returned from France to work as Minister of Planning and Development from 1998 to 1999, when a civil government’s coup collapsed, and the army took over the country.

Thaham rejected the position of cabinet, which was submitted by the military government and left the country. He continued high -level positions, first as CEO of the UK Insurance Group, PRUDENTIAL, then Credit Suisse. The bank spying scandal led to his resignation in 2020 after accusing a third colleague of spying. The second of any involvement has been disinfected.

After returning to Ivory Coast in 2022, Thiam re -inserted politics and joined the Democratic Party (PDCI), the former ruling party that carries power from independence in 1960 until the 1999 coup, and is now the main opposition party.

In December 2023, the party’s delegates voted overwhelmingly in favor of Thaham to be the next leader after the death of former President and former President Henry Conan Bidi. At that time, PDCI officials said that Thiam represents a breath of the fresh air of the country’s policy, and it appears that many young people are ready to support him as an upcoming president.

But his ambitions stopped on April 22 when the judge ordered that his name had been beaten from the list of competitors because Tham took French in 1987 and lost IVF automatically according to the laws of the country.

Although the politician abandoned his French nationality in February this year, the court ruled that he did not do so before registering himself in the electoral list in 2022, and thus was not qualified to be the party leader, a presidential candidate, or even a voter.

Thaham and his lawyer argued that the law is inconsistent. Thaham indicated in one interview with correspondents, mostly, mostly of the French citizens, but they did not face any restrictions on the contract of IVF. “The bottom line is that I was born Evora,”

Will Thiam be able to stand and who stands?

It is not clear whether Thiam can legally return to the list of candidates, but he is trying.

In May, he resigned as a PDCI president and was immediately re -elected by 99 percent of the vote. He has not yet revealed whether he would try to registration as a candidate, but he promised to keep up with the fighting.

Thaham pledged to attract industrial investments to the country as he did in the past as a minister, and to remove the country from the economy of France -backed CFA, which includes countries from West and Central Africa formerly colonized by France, and believes that its currencies are linked to the euro.

Meanwhile, among the other powerful candidates Pascal Affini Nuwaisan, 67, who is a former prime minister and a close ally of GBAGBO, who will represent the Idoric Popular Front of GBAGBO (FPI).

Simon Gbagbo, the former first lady who has now divorced from GBAGBO, will also, as a candidate for the capable generations movement. She was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2015 on charges of undermining state security, but it benefited from the amnesty law to promote national reconciliation later in 2018.