President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire has declared amnesty for Simone Gbagbo, who had been convicted of offences against the state during a brief 2011 civil war.
Simone Gbagbo, the wife of former president Laurent Gbagbo, was one of 800 citizens that Ouattara said
he had pardoned, in a state address broadcast live on TV.
She had been tried and convicted in 2015 and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In 2017, an Abidjan court acquitted her of crimes against humanity and war crimes linked to her role in
the 2011 civil war that killed about 3,000 people.
Human Rights groups criticised that decision.
“Because of my commitment to peace and true reconciliation, I proceeded to sign this day an amnesty
order, which will benefit 800 of our citizens,” Ouattara said in the address that seemed to be
aimed at cooling political tensions.
Cote d’Ivoire is Francophone West Africa’s largest, most successful and diverse economy.
But its combustible politics – turbocharged by ongoing ethnic and land disputes and scores to settle
from a decade-long crisis – makes an election scheduled for 2020 potentially perilous.
Besides Simone Gbagbo, another beneficiary was Kamagate Souleymane, a former rebel when Laurent Gbagbo
was in power, and who is close to national assembly leader Guillaume Soro.
Soro’s rebel movement claims credit for helping Ouattara come to power after Gbagbo refused to accept
defeat in an election, triggering the short but brutal 2011 civil war for which Laurent Gbagbo
is currently on trial in the International Criminal Court.
Political tensions are heating up ahead of elections in 2020. Ouattara’s ruling RDR coalition has
fallen out with the coalition’s junior partner, the PDCI, whose leader expelled party members named
to a new Cabinet in July.
There have also been doubts over whether Ouattara will step down after two terms, as required by the
constitution, although in his address he repeated a remark made in July that he would “work to
transfer power to a new generation”.
