The president of the Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI, opposition), Tidjane Thiam, reacted in an
interview on the Convention of the political party to consecrate its candidate for the presidential election of October 2025.
At this convention, he made essentially three comments. First, he indicated that he was elected at the end of December 2023 with “an overwhelming majority of 96.5 percent and in the enthusiasm of this event;” more than 4,000 voters wanted him to be the PDCI candidate for the presidential election.
However, “our texts are clear, they say that a convention must be held and this convention will be a formality, because the result is already known. So, I think we must stop the psychodrama around this,” he said.
“We will respect our texts, there will be a convention, and all those who want to be candidates will be able to be, without any problem,” said the president of the PDCI, in an interview broadcast on social media platforms.
In his second comment on the convention, Tidjane Thiam noted that “it is a political event of major importance that must designate the one who must carry the colours of the PDCI in the presidential election of October 2025.”
This he said, requires a particular approach.
“Therefore, those who make this choice must make an informed choice, as late as possible to have the maximum amount of information and today there is a subject on the table that is fundamental, namely who will be the candidate of the RHDP,” the party in power, he said.
For him, “holding a convention when we do not have the answer to this question is the best approach? Therefore, the PDCI and its president reserve the right to choose the optimal time for this convention to be held to maximize” the party’s chances.
This is why “we have not yet made a decision on this point for reasons that are obvious,” explained Tidjane Thiam, the “natural candidate of the PDCI.” Within the party, Jean-Louis Billon has already announced that he will be a candidate for the 2025 presidential election.
Speaking of the competition, his third comment, Tidjane Thiam affirmed that “the competition is a story of (his) life. In 1980, he was the first in the Baccalaureate (in Ivory Coast) and then went to France.”
At the Ecole des Mines in Paris, Tidjane Thiam reported having been a “valedictorian” before ending up in London, where from September 2009 to June 2015, he headed the Prudential insurance group, making him the first black director of a FTSE 100 company.
He reminded his detractors that “the process that leads to being appointed CEO of a group of this size, which has more than $1,000 billion in total assets, is a highly competitive process with a committee that selects candidates and evaluates them.”
“The positions I have held in my career, I have had them on merit, not by filial favours. I have had them on merit every time. So, if someone tells me that I am afraid of competition, who am I afraid of? I have been confronted with the best minds, the most competent people in different geographies,” he declared.
According to the former Ivorian Minister of Planning, if the former Swiss Bank Credit Suisse came to “look for him in London” so that he would come because “the bank was in a desperate situation,” it was because of his skills.
“I am not afraid of competition, I invite all those who are in the PDCI and who wish to be candidates at the party convention (in the presidential election of October 2025) to come and face me and I will beat them,” vowed Tidjane Thiam.
He shared that his absence from Côte d’Ivoire is not the issue, “what matters to Ivorians is knowing who can help them. It is not a competition of presence, (because) we are not at school, it is a competition of results.”
“I spent five years here in Côte d’Ivoire. We still talk about the ideas that I expressed at the time. In October 96, two years after my arrival in Côte d’Ivoire, I presented the program of the 12 works of the African elephant and 30 years later we are in the process of realising it,” he continued.
As a result, “Ivorians do not doubt my ability to create a vision, to sell it and then to execute and realize it,” said Tidjane Thiam, who succeeded Henri Konan Bedie, who died on August 1, 2023 in Abidjan.
AP/Sf/fss/as/APA