Kandia Kamissoko Camara, a former Minister of State, Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration and the Diaspora, has become the first woman to hold the post of President of the Senate in Cote d’Ivoire.
Camara was elected on Thursday October 12, in Yamoussoukro, with 91 percent of the votes cast by 97 voters, during the inaugural session of the institution’s second legislature, which runs from 2023 to 2028.
The new head of the Senate thanked members of the Second Chamber for their vote of confidence and invited them to work together to meet the current challenges and promote the country’s development.
On Monday October 9, President Alassane Ouattara, appointed 33 senators, including Kandia Camara, in accordance with Article 87 of the constitution.
She succeeds Jeannot Ahoussou, the first head of the Ivorian Senate.
Her appointment follows the senatorial elections held on September 16. Two thirds of the 99 members of the Senate are indirectly elected by an electoral college of locally elected representatives, while the remaining third are appointed by the president.
One leading figure, Ms. Camara, was appointed secretary general of the Republican Rally (RDR) on September 10, 2017, following the third ordinary congress of Alassane Ouattara’s party.
She lost this position with the creation of the RHDP in January 2019.
On April 8, 2021, after ten years as Minister of National Education, she succeeded Ally Coulibaly as head of the Ivorian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position she held until Monday 9 October 2023.
In July 2021, she was elected Mayor of Abobo (north of Abidjan) by the municipal council, replacing Hamed Bakayoko, who had died a few months earlier.
She was re-elected in the local elections of September 2023.
AP/lb/as/APA