Your report (“Thiam vows to fight Ivory Coast electoral ban”, April 24) is a graphic instance of the current fragile nature of democracy around the world.
In disqualifying former Credit Suisse chief Tidjane Thiam from contesting October’s presidential election over a nationality issue, the courts risk the suspicion that laws are being applied selectively to sideline a candidate who threatens the coterie that abuse office for personal gain and whose continued hold on power would be jeopardised were Thiam to win the election.
Other dubious challenges before the courts seek to strip Thiam of his party’s leadership, in effect ending his participation in the political process altogether. This speaks of panic, triggered by threatened self-interest.
Not only was Thiam elected leader of the Democratic party (PDCI-RDA) in December 2023 with 96.5 per cent of the delegates’ votes, but he is now comfortably ahead in the national polls.
The inner coterie denies any meddling in the courts, which is neither surprising nor convincing.
Now more than ever, the international community of democratic countries has manifest reasons to push back against incipient autocracy wherever it sprouts.
Locking Thiam out of the democratic process on the spurious grounds that he once held French citizenship only risks fresh instability in a country where elections have too often been marred by violence triggered by these very malpractices.
President Alassane Ouattara can presumably recall that he himself was twice prevented from running in elections over nationality issues: it would be beyond irony to find himself presiding over a repetition.
Paul Collier
University of Oxford
Francis Fukuyama
Stanford University
Timothy Garton-Ash
University of Oxford and Stanford University
Dani Rodrik
Harvard University
Nicholas Stern
London School of Economics
Leonard Wantchekon
Princeton University
