The enfant terrible of Ivorian politics could soon return to Abidjan. Having gone into exile in 2019 after falling out with his former ally, President Alassane Ouattara, former rebel leader Guillaume Soro is multiplying signals in this direction. His return would reshuffle the political cards a year and a half before the next presidential election.
It was the revelation of two telephone calls made at the end of March between Alassane Ouattara and his former prime minister that made Guillaume Soro’s arrival in Abidjan possible. In a brief press release published on April 4 on social networks, the latter indicated that he had telephoned the head of state to “welcome the beginning of political easing in Côte d’Ivoire”. These exchanges, according to him, had been “marked by cordiality”.
“It’s not an April Fool’s joke,” he then assured in a message on the social network The 2025 presidential election is not far away. You have to get active. » These calls were confirmed to Le Monde by the Ivorian authorities.
“A head of state, who is a friend of both men, convinced Guillaume Soro to make a phone call to Alassane Ouattara to thank him for having extended the presidential pardon measure to some of his close companions,” explains Moussa Touré , the communications manager for Generations and Peoples Solidarity (GPS). According to him, Guillaume Soro would have judged that the time had come “to begin a thaw”.
A bumpy ride
“The president has always said that unruly children are his children. Guillaume is the most turbulent of them but he is one of us,” said one of the government executives. Relations between the former allies have been tumultuous to say the least in recent years. A quarrel fueled by the too great ambitions of Guillaume Soro.
The former leader of the rebellion which allowed Alassane Ouattara to gain power against Laurent Gbagbo claimed a place as heir apparent for the services rendered, and his nomination on behalf of the ruling party for the 2020 presidential election, in vain. Suspected of being behind destabilization of the country, he was forced to resign in 2019. He announced against all odds his candidacy for the presidential election, but took the path of exile.
Since then, Guillaume Soro’s journey has been bumpy, made of peaks towards Abidjan. Based in Paris from 2019 to the end of 2020, he was deemed undesirable by the Elysée following a call for a coup d’état after the re-election of Alassane Ouattara to a third term in November 2020.
With a prudence that sometimes borders on paranoia, a fan of covering his tracks, the former prime minister was then spotted successively in Belgium, Switzerland, Cyprus and Dubai. Back on the African continent since the end of 2023, he appeared with the putschists of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES), which brings together Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, who hosted him. Soldiers who have become enemies of Ivorian power.
Presidential pardons
But thanks to Côte d’Ivoire’s victory on home soil at the African Cup of Nations on February 11, the political atmosphere relaxed. With the announced objective of “strengthening the cohesion of the country”, President Ouattara granted his pardon on February 22 to fifty-one prisoners, civilians and military, all convicted for offenses committed during the post-electoral crises or for “violation to state security.”
Several relatives of Guillaume Soro benefited, in particular Jean-Baptiste Kouamé Kassé, the former head of his bodyguard, and Affoussiata Bamba-Lamine, former spokesperson for the rebellion, who had followed the opponent into exile. But above all Souleymane Kamaraté Koné known as “Soul to Soul”, the former chief of protocol of Guillaume Soro, sentenced to twenty years in prison in 2021 for “conspiracy” and “attempted attack on state security”.
Having become Guillaume Soro’s emissary since his release from prison on February 23, “Soul to Soul” has toured the main opposition parties in recent weeks, at the head of a delegation from GPS, Guillaume Soro’s party of which he is vice-president. On March 26, he was received by former President Laurent Gbagbo, who instructed him to convey his greetings to his mentor: “If you have any news from Guillaume [Soro], he said, say- I salute him. »
On April 4, “Soul to Soul” also visited former first lady Simone Gbagbo, now head of her own political party, the Movement of Capable Generations (MGC), and the next day the president of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), Tidjane Thiam. GPS spokesperson Loukiman Kamara declared at the end of the hearing that Mr. Thiam had promised that he “will fight with the President of the Republic so that [their] president returns to Ivory Coast among his “.
New deal for the presidential election?
On April 6, GPS announced the “gradual return of [its] executives in exile.” Starting with Guillaume Soro’s chief of staff, Toh Marc Ouattara, who landed the same day at Abidjan airport. In the images of his arrival, which Le Monde obtained, Toh Marc Ouattara is escorted by Mohamed Bamba, the mission manager of the Minister of Defense Téné Birahima Ouattara. According to GPS, Mr. Bamba had been dispatched to the airport by the government to welcome Guillaume Soro’s chief of staff and “to facilitate customs and police procedures.”
A year and a half before the presidential election, the return of Guillaume Soro would change the political situation in view of the presidential election of 2025. Some observers do not hesitate to envisage an alliance between the RHDP and the GPS by 2025. one needs the other in the run-up to the presidential election of 2025. Faced with the dynamic created by the PDCI-RDA with the arrival at the head of the party of Tidjane Thiam and the desire for candidacy of Laurent Gbagbo, Alassane Ouattara needs Guillaume Soro to consolidate his electoral base in northern Ivory Coast. As for Guillaume Soro, he needs clemency from Alassane Ouattara to resolve the question of his criminal status. », Estimates political scientist Geoffroy-Julien Kouao.
The whole issue would be the conditions of this alliance, while Alassane Ouattara has not yet announced whether he would run for a fourth term and Guillaume Soro does not have his destiny in hand. In 2021, the former rebel was in fact sentenced to life imprisonment in Ivory Coast for “attempting to undermine state security”. If he returns, he will have to count on presidential clemency to avoid going to prison.
