The Democratic Party of Ivory Coast African Democratic Rally (PDCI-RDA), the party of the country’s former president Henri Konan Bédié (1993-1999), is meeting today, March 30, 2023, in Abidjan. The party is meeting to put its texts and the composition of its political bureau in conformity. The latter had been widened to dissuade certain PDCI-RDA executives from joining other parties.
Ivory Coast’s Political Future Hangs in the Balance: PDCI-RDA Seventh Extraordinary Congress Set to Tackle Internal Divisions in Abidjan
For Henri Konan Bédié, the president of this opposition party, it is a question of restoring order in his formation, starting with bringing the political office into conformity with the texts of the party.
A political office with five times more members than expected
According to Article 54 of the PDCI-RDA statutes, this body is limited to 400 members. But today there would be nearly 2,000 people in this political office.
A disproportion linked to decisions taken by Henri Konan Bédié to raise his party, when several executives were poached to join other political parties. There was a desire to “curb transhumance”, explains Soumaïla Bredoumy, the party’s spokesperson: “First challenge, is to bring our text into line with the adjustments that the PDCI-RDA had to make in times of crisis in the face of the threat of disappearance of the party and the flight of some of the executives. It was therefore necessary to remobilize the executives, to allow them to have a lot more votes in the party, so the president took a certain number of emergency decisions and our texts say that the emergency decisions must be brought into conformity before the Congress.”
The PDCI-RDA will then have to finalize its list of candidates for the municipal and regional elections in September. And organize its thirteenth ordinary congress: a meeting designed to review the organs and statutes of the party. And above all: elect its president.