In Côte d'Ivoire, seven months before the presidential election scheduled for October 25, 2025, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) published a provisional electoral roll on Monday, March 17, comprising 8.7 million voters, including 969,000 new registrants. However, three major opposition figures are absent: former President Laurent Gbagbo, his former right-hand man Charles Blé Goudé, and former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro. According to Le Monde, their exclusion is based on previous judicial convictions (Le Monde, March 18, 2025).

On the other hand, Tidjane Thiam, president of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI), does appear on this list, despite a recent controversy surrounding his dual French-Ivorian nationality. His detractors relied on a rarely enforced article of the 1961 nationality code, stipulating that an Ivorian loses his nationality if he voluntarily acquires a foreign nationality. Tidjane Thiam, born Ivorian, obtained French nationality in 1987 after graduating from the École des Mines. However, as Le Monde points out, the law required a government decree within fifteen years of this acquisition to confirm this loss, which never occurred. To comply with the Ivorian Constitution, which requires exclusively Ivorian nationality for presidential candidates, Thiam renounced his French nationality in early February 2025, a decision granted on March 3 and soon to be published in the French Official Journal.

The excluded, for their part, contest their exclusion. Laurent Gbagbo's African People's Party (PPA-CI) considers it "illogical" that the former president, acquitted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2021 for crimes related to the 2010-2011 post-election crisis, remains affected by a 2018 Ivorian sentence of twenty years in prison for the "BCEAO robbery." Sébastien Dano Djédjé, executive president of the PPA-CI, denounced a decision by the IEC motivated by "pride, contempt, or revenge," aimed at discouraging activists and provoking tensions. Similarly, Charles Blé Goudé, also acquitted by the ICC but sentenced to twenty years by the Ivorian courts without amnesty, shares a similar situation. Guillaume Soro, in exile since 2019, is also excluded. The parties and movements supporting these leaders have announced their intention to file appeals within the fifteen days provided for by law.

Conversely, Simone Ehivet Gbagbo, former first lady and declared candidate, appears on the list, having benefited from an amnesty granted by President Alassane Ouattara in 2018. This electoral configuration, marked by the exclusion of heavyweights from the opposition, could revive tensions in a country with a tumultuous political past.