The Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally (;

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PDCI-RDA) is a

centre-right Centre-right politics is the set of right-wing politics, right-wing political ideologies that lean closer to the political centre. It is commonly associated with conservatism, Christian democracy, liberal conservatism, and conservative liberalis ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular area's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology, ...

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire and officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital city of Yamoussoukro is located in the centre of the country, while its largest List of ci ...

History

Founded during the

colonial era Colonial period (a period in a country's history where it was subject to management by a colonial power) may refer to: Continents *European colonization of the Americas * Colonisation of Africa * Western imperialism in Asia Countries * Col ...

in 1946, as an outgrowth of the African Agricultural Union, and initially affiliated with the

French Communist Party The French Communist Party (, , PCF) is a Communism, communist list of political parties in France, party in France. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its Member of the European Parliament, MEPs sit with The Left in the ...

, it became the only legal party in the country upon independence in 1960. For the next 30 years, the PDCI and the government were effectively one. Every five years, its founder and leader,

Félix Houphouët-Boigny Félix Houphouët-Boigny (; 18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux ("The Old One"), was an Ivorian politician and physician who served as the first List of heads of state of Ivory Coast, pr ...

, was automatically elected to a five-year term as president of the republic and confirmed in office via a referendum. At the same time, a single list of PDCI candidates was returned to the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

. All adult Ivorians were required to be members of the party, which was considered the primary intermediary between the government and the people. Even after opposition parties were legalised in 1990, the PDCI continued to dominate Ivorian politics. At the 1990 elections, Houphouët-Boigny was reelected with an implausible 81 percent of the vote, and the party won all but 12 seats in the legislature. Houphouët-Boigny led the party from its formation until his death in 1993. A year later, acting president of the republic

Henri Konan Bédié Aimé Henri Konan Bédié (5 May 1934 – 1 August 2023) was an Ivorian politician. He was President of Côte d'Ivoire from 1993 to 1999, and formerly President of the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast – African Democratic Rally (PDCI–RDA).< ...

became the party's second leader. He served out Houphouët-Boigny's seventh term, and was elected in his own right in 1995 with over 96 percent of the vote; the opposition parties had boycotted the election in protest of new eligibility requirements that they deemed unfair. The party lost power when Bédié was ousted in a December 1999 coup. The PDCI announced in early 2000 that it would hold a congress to choose new leadership, and Bédié denounced this as a " putsch"; the party decided to retain Bédié in the leadership, however. In August, Bédié and four other PDCI members registered as candidates in the October 2000 presidential election;"COTE D'IVOIRE: Nineteen register as presidential candidates"
IRIN, August 18, 2000. shortly afterward, Emile Constant Bombet, who had served as Interior Minister under Bédié, defeated Bédié for the PDCI presidential nomination. Bombet and Bédié were both barred from running by the Constitutional Court in early October, and on October 10 Bédié called for a boycott of the election. Unlike many former single parties in Africa, the PDCI has made a good account of itself since losing power. In the

parliamentary election A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...

held on 10 December 2000 and 14 January 2001, the party won 94 out of 225 seats. On 18 May 2005, the PDCI and the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), despite a history of hostility towards one another (the RDR had been formed as a liberal splinter from the PDCI in 1994), signed an agreement to form a coalition, the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace, along with two smaller parties, the Union for Democracy and Peace in Ivory Coast (UDPCI) and the Movement of the Forces of the Future (MFA), ahead of the presidential election then planned for October 2005. This election was delayed several times, finally held in 2010. By that time, the two parties had resumed competing against each other. At the 11 December 2011 parliamentary election, the PDCI remained the principal opposition party, with 76 seats. At the 2016 parliamentary election, the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (composed of the RDR, the PDCI and some minor parties) won a strong majority at the National Assembly. At the 2021 Ivorian parliamentary election, the PDCI only gained around 6% of the vote and 23 seats. The Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace won, in contrast, 49% of the vote and now have 137 seats in the parliament. The PDCI Primary will take place on April 16, 2025, to designate the candidate for the presidential elections of October 2025. Thiam resigned as party president on May 12, 2025, considering himself the victim of "judicial harassment".

Electoral history

Presidential elections

National Assembly elections

References

External links