Former Ivory Coast president Henri Konan Bedie, a nationalist who had not ruled out a return to office even in his final days, died at the age of 89, according to his party.
The “Ivory Coast Democratic Party-African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA) is deeply saddened” to announce Bedie’s “sudden death” in Abidjan on Tuesday, according to a statement.
As a professional politician, Bedie born in 1934 to a cocoa farmer family, was chosen as the successor to Ivory Coast’s founding father, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, who controlled the west African nation from its independence from France in 1960 until his death in 1993, aged 88.
In 1959, he entered the French diplomatic service and was sent to the French embassy in Washington as a counsellor. Bedie was chosen as Ivory Coast’s ambassador to France when the country gained independence in 1960.
Six years later, at the age of 32, he was appointed to lead the economy amid a period of fast development fueled by the rise of the coffee and cocoa industries, which continue to be the country’s key economic drivers.
Bedie was president from 1993 to 1999, when he was deposed by the military in the country’s first coup.
Bedie, who has been at odds with Ouattara for three decades, has not ruled out standing in the country’s next presidential election in 2025.
The former president primary effect on national politics was to promote “Ivoirite” (Ivorian-ness) – the concept of a national identity and economy in a country with dozens of ethnic groupings.
The nationalist stance favoured persons with two Ivorian parents over immigrants, affecting countless employees on the country’s cocoa farms.
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