Former president's party selects candidate for October's presidential election in Cote d'Ivoire

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Reuters reports that "The party of Ivory Coast's ex-president Laurent Gbagbo (the Ivorian Popular Front - FPI) has chosen its leader, Pascal Affi N'Guessan, to run in an Oct. 25 presidential election that will mark its return to electoral politics following a string of boycotts since a brief 2011 war."

President Ouattara is favored to win the election, with strong economic performance since his inauguration in 2011, and support from both his own Rally of the Republicans (RDR) party and his former party, and party of former presidents Houphouet-Boigny and Bedie, the Democratic Party of Cote d'Ivoire (PDCI). (Ouattara was a member of the PDC under Houphouet-Boigny; Bedie is still head of the PDCI.)

Former president Gbagbo is awaiting trial at the International Criminal Court (Cour Penale Internationale, or CPI, in French) in the Hague for crimes against humanity. There was speculation that Gbagbo would be the FPI's candidate from jail, but that didn't pan out.

Read more about Cote d'Ivoire's upcoming presidential election in my earlier blog post. 

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