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History

Founded during the colonial era in 1946, as an outgrowth of the African Agricultural Union, and initially affiliated with the French Communist Party,¹ 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, 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.

All adult Ivorians were required to be members of the party,² 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 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";³ the party decided to retain Bédié in the leadership, however.⁴ In August, Bédié and four other PDCI members registered as candidates in the October 2000 presidential election;⁵ shortly afterward, Emile Constant Bombet, who had served as Interior Minister under Bédié, defeated Bédié for the PDCI presidential nomination.⁶ 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.⁷

Unlike many former single parties in Africa, the PDCI has made a good account of itself since losing power. In the parliamentary election 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 2005.⁸⁹ 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 2025.¹⁰

Thiam resigned as party president on May 12, 2025, considering himself the victim of "judicial harassment".¹¹

Electoral history

Presidential elections

National Assembly elections

See also

• Eburnean Democratic Bloc, splinter group formed in 1949 ¹²
• Youth of the African Democratic Rally of Ivory Coast
• Patrick Achi

External links

• PDCI-RDA website (in French)
• PDCI-RDA website (in French)

References

1. "Felix Houphouet-Boigny, Ivory Coast's Leader Since Freedom in 1960, Is Dead", NYT, December 8, 1993. https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/08/obituaries/felix-houphouet-boigny-ivory-coast-s-leader-since-freedom-in-1960-is-dead.html ↩

2. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain. Robert E. Handloff (November 1988). "The Party". In Handloff, Robert E.; Roberts, Thomas Duval (eds.). Cote d'Ivoire: a country study. Federal Research Division, Library of Congress. LCCN 90005878. /wiki/Public_domain ↩

3. "Cote d'Ivoire: Ousted president accuses party of staging "putsch" against him", AFP (nl.newsbank.com), February 29, 2000. ↩

4. "Ivorian former ruling party wants coup leader to stick to "transition period"", Radio France Internationale (nl.newsbank.com), April 11, 2000. ↩

5. "COTE D'IVOIRE: Nineteen register as presidential candidates", IRIN, August 18, 2000. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=2553 ↩

6. "COTE D'IVOIRE: Ex-interior minister chosen as PDCI presidential candidate", IRIN, August 21, 2000. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=2519 ↩

7. "Cote d'Ivoire: Former President Bedie calls for presidential election boycott", AFP (nl.newsbank.com), October 10, 2000. ↩

8. "La nouvelle alliance contre Gbagbo" Archived 2021-06-25 at the Wayback Machine, rfi.fr, 19 May 2005 (in French). http://rfi.fr/actufr/articles/065/article_36278.asp ↩

9. "Côte d'Ivoire: Former political foes strike pact to oust Gbagbo", IRIN, 18 May 2005. http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=54493 ↩

10. "" Billon n'a pas voulu être candidat, c'est un choix " : le PDCI vote pour Tidjane Thiam". Jeune Afrique. 16 April 2025. Retrieved 16 April 2025. https://www.jeuneafrique.com/1679802/politique/billon-na-pas-voulu-etre-candidat-cest-un-choix-le-pdci-vote-pour-tidjane-thiam/ ↩

11. "Côte d'Ivoire: Tidjane Thiam quitte la présidence du parti d'opposition PDCI". Radio France International. 12 May 2025. Retrieved 12 May 2025. https://www.rfi.fr/fr/en-bref/20250512-c%C3%B4te-d-ivoire-tidjane-thiam-renonce-%C3%A0-la-pr%C3%A9sidence-du-parti-d-opposition-pdci ↩

12. Gbagbo, Laurent. Côte d'Ivoire, Pour une alternative démocratique. Paris: L'Harmattan, 1983. ↩