Regional and municipal elections will take place in Ivory Coast on September 2, a government spokesperson said Wednesday, ahead of presidential elections set for 2025.
The governing RHDP party won control of 18 of the country’s 31 regions five years ago, with the main opposition Democratic Party taking six.
The coming votes are considered a test of the strength of Ivory Coast’s leading political groups before the presidential vote in the West African nation, a regional economic power and leading cocoa exporter.
The September date was set by decree after a proposal from the Independent Election Commission, said government spokesperson Amadou Coulibaly.
Eleven members of the government will stand in the regional elections, according to a list published by the RHDP.
Prime Minister Patrick Achi will be seeking re-election as head of the Me regional council, his home area in the southeast.
The elections will be a first outing for former president Laurent Gbagbo’s new African People’s Party – Ivory Coast (PPA-CI), a left-wing pan-African group.
Gbagbo returned to Ivory Coast in June 2021 after being acquitted by the International Criminal Court on human rights charges linked to post-electoral violence in 2011.
