When it happened

The attempt was set to happen on the night of Saturday, 3 January 2026. On that day, some social media users started posting about a possible threat to the government, which led some people to protest in the streets. A pro-government web TV station broke the news on 5 January, and the official confirmation came on Tuesday, 7 January.

Who is accused

The government has blamed Lt Col Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba for leading the plan. Damiba previously led Burkina Faso after taking power in January 2022. He was removed by Captain Traoré in September 2022 and has been living in Togo since then.

Minister Sana said Damiba was responsible for putting the plan together. He allegedly brought in both military and civilian supporters and received money from outside the country to carry out the plan. The minister claimed that 70 million CFA francs (£92,000) came from Côte d’Ivoire to help fund the operation.

What was planned

According to reports, the group aimed to kill Captain Traoré either directly or by using explosives at his home. After that, they allegedly wanted to:

Minister Sana said, "Our intelligence services intercepted this operation in the final hours. They had planned to assassinate the head of state and then strike other key institutions, including civilian personalities". He also added, "after this action, there was to follow an operation to put the drone base out of service, and a ground military intervention by external forces".

Current status

Several people have been arrested, and investigations are still ongoing. Sana told the public that the threat had been contained and warned them "not to be misled, out of naivety, into dangerous schemes". He said the government will release videos of confessions from those involved and that they will face legal consequences.

Meanwhile, in Ivory Coast, President Alassane Ouattara coasted to victory after earning 90% of votes cast in the October 25 elections . The win handed Ouattara his fourth, five-year term, which would extend his rule to 20 years. 

More astounding was President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s win in Tanzania, as the country’s electoral body declared she won 98% of the vote in a widely participated election — 87% of registered voters turned out, compared with 50% in 2020. 

While these electoral wins are separated by distance and circumstance, the three are bound by ties that extend beyond their status as reelectionists and leaders in Africa. 

Opposition barred

One of the most glaring similarities between the Cameroon, Ivory Coast and Tanzania elections was that major opposition bets were barred from running — many of them disqualified on questionable grounds. 

In Cameroon, veteran politician and lawyer Maurice Kamto was dropped from the candidates' list after his party, the Movement for the Renaissance of Cameroon, fell into disarray after internal disputes led to rival endorsements. Before his candidacy came to an abrupt end, he was widely regarded as the strongest challenger to Biya. 

Ivory Coast’s electoral body stripped two challengers of their eligibility: Tidjane Thiam, whose acquisition of a French citizenship was seen as an automatic forfeiture of his Ivorian citizenship, and Laurent Gbagbo, the country’s former president who was barred over a 2018 criminal conviction.

Two opposition candidates were also prohibited from running in Tanzania, namely Chadema’s Tundu Lissu, who spent two months in jail for treason over his calls for fair elections, and Luhaga Mpina of ACT-Wazalendo.

Irregularities 

With the questionable disqualification of key challengers, many have alleged irregularities in the three elections. 

Even before this year’s polls, Cameroon has often been portrayed as a country practicing electoral autocracy — meaning it holds elections regularly, but ones that fall short of democratic standards. 

Opposition bet Issa Tchiroma Bakary, who placed second according to the Constitutional Court’s results, claimed he had won the October 12 vote with a 54.8% share of votes, based on partial data. 

Allegations of irregularities in the Ivorian polls primarily stem from the removal of key candidates from the ballots, resulting in what observers label as a “non-competitive” election. Residents said the election was held under a climate of fear, too, with a heavy police presence observed in the days leading up to, and after, the vote. 

In Tanzania, evidence of electoral fraud was more blatant, as the country entered an information blackout with the internet shut down. The European Union later slammed the “lack of level playing field” and “large number of fatalities and significant injuries” in the polls.

Protest and violence

Four protesters were killed a day before Biya’s proclamation in Cameroon, with many more reported to be hurt in demonstrations that have taken over major parts of the country, including its commercial capital, Douala. 

Biya has acknowledged this violence, but his government was quick to flip the script, blaming “perpetrators and instigators” who alleged electoral fraud for fuelling post-election chaos.

Meanwhile, protests in Ivory Coast had largely been quashed by the government as dozens of demonstrators were arrested for public order offences, in what Amnesty International described as a clear sign of repression.

Post-election violence in Tanzania was the most alarming, as the opposition claimed the death toll had reached 700. The actual count, they said, could be much higher as more killings took place during a nighttime curfew. 

Tanzania’s foreign minister dismissed the violence as a "few isolated pockets of incidents here and there,” adding the internet shutdown was a necessary measure to save lives. 

“We have an unfair electoral system that has been locked in place for months. We have called for far-reaching reforms to guarantee inclusive, transparent and credible elections ,” she said

The CEI on Monday, October 27, declared incumbent President Alassane Ouattara the winner, securing a fourth term in office with 89.77 percent of the votes. Former Commerce Minister Jean-Louis Billon received 3.09 percent, while Gbagbo garnered 2.42 percent, according to provisional results.

Gbagbo, who ran under the banner of the Mouvement des Générations Capab.les (MGC), said the results failed to capture the true mood of Ivorians, arguing that her campaign revealed deep public frustration with the current political system.

She also criticised the heavy political influence over the country’s electoral institutions and campaign financing, saying meaningful reform is crucial for the future of Ivorian democracy.

“Ivory Coast will not be able to build a sustainable democracy as long as electoral institutions remain under political control, as long as campaign financing is not fairly regulated, and as long as the transparency of results is not guaranteed by law and technology,” Gbagbo added.

According to the CEI, more than 8.7 million Ivorians were registered to vote in this year’s polls .

Nearly nine million Ivorians were eligible to vote on Saturday, but turnout was around 50 percent, a figure comparable to the 2010 and 2015 elections , yet well below the 80 percent participation seen in the first round of the 2010 poll.

The election , held on October 25, excluded Ouattara’s most formidable rivals. Former President Laurent Gbagbo was barred from running due to a criminal conviction, while former Credit Suisse CEO Tidjane Thiam was disqualified for holding French citizenship. With both sidelined, observers say the path was clear for Ouattara’s “landslide victory.”

Among the remaining candidates, Jean-Louis Billon, a former commerce minister, received 3.09 percent of the vote, while former First Lady Simone Gbagbo garnered 2.42 percent, according to official results .

Ouattara, who has ruled since 2011, has described this new mandate as one of “generational transition,” promising to guide the country toward a younger political era. However, critics argue that such pledges have faded into repetition, with little sign of genuine renewal.

In 2016, a new constitution reset presidential term limits, legally allowing Ouattara to run again.

Supporters credit Ouattara with steering the Ivory Coast toward economic revival, boasting annual growth rates near six percent and a surge in infrastructure development. They argue his steady leadership has safeguarded the country from the instability that has engulfed parts of the Sahel region.

“People are supposed to be in the streets for three or four days until the guy changes position,” an Ivorian journalist told me in a recent interview. “But some people are afraid."

"Do you know that since the day the guy took power in 2010, until today, there have been some people in jail? Can you believe this?" he added.

That fear is not unfounded. In the lead-up to the 2020 election , at least 85 people were killed in political violence after President Alassane Ouattara announced he would run for a third term, a move widely seen as unconstitutional at the time.

The opposition boycotted the vote, labelling it a “constitutional coup,” and the resulting low-turnout election saw Ouattara claim over 94% of the vote.

The current tensions lie in the electoral list, which opposition leaders claim is deliberately packed with non-Ivorian names to tip the scales in favour of the ruling party.

“Even if it is Jesus Christ, this president will win,” said the journalist. “Because he has put so many foreign people inside.”

The 2002 civil war and the post-electoral crisis of 2010 were both rooted in disputes over who qualifies as truly Ivorian . In a country with a significant immigrant population, opposition leaders say Ouattara’s electoral commission is exploiting that legacy to manufacture loyalty through questionable registrations.

Efforts to audit or revise the register have been rebuffed. “What is the most important? It is to check one by one, all people on the list to see if they are Ivorian or not. The guy will refuse. Because if this list is cleared, he will never win — never, never, never.”

Many fear a repeat of 2020’s violence , or worse. The opposition has signalled that unless the electoral list is revised and all qualified candidates reinstated, they may reject the results outright. “I’m not sure this election will be held,” the journalist confessed. “If on the 25th of this month the election is not held, from the 26th morning he is no more the president. There will be someone — not involved in politics — to organise it.” It’s a scenario that edges the country close to *constitutional rupture*.

Should protests escalate or the vote be widely discredited, international mediation may be required, as was the case in 2011, when post-election violence ended only after French and UN troops intervened. For now, Ivorians live with a sense of déjà vu.

The government of President Alassane Ouattara has banned opposition demonstrations and moved aggressively against media seen as sympathetic to the opposition, drawing condemnation from organisations like Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

“If you want to say something about him, it must be something good. If you say something bad, you go to jail,” an Ivorian journalist told Global South World in a confidential interview. “All the journalists here, if you see them talking about this guy, it means their mouth is open to say something good about the president. In this case, no problem.”

His concerns mirror reports from press freedom groups like Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, both of which have documented assaults, detentions, and surveillance of the media.

Most recently, 237 protestors were arrested during demonstrations on October 11, some of them journalists. “Some people from the media have been caught by him… they did not want them to be there to take some pictures or to take notes… some have been sent to jail,” the journalist said.

Those on the frontlines of documenting these events – journalists – have themselves become targets. Press freedom monitors report multiple cases of reporters being assaulted, arrested, or intimidated while covering the political unrest.

In early November 2020, amid the post-election crisis of that year, police raided the home of former President Henri Konan Bédié (then an opposition leader) and arrested at least 20 people, including a journalist on the scene.

Yao Alex Hallane Clément, a reporter for the privately owned PDCI 24 TV (aligned with Bédié’s opposition party), was taken into custody during that raid despite identifying himself as press.

He was held without charge for seven days – much of it at the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DST), a facility typically used for terror suspects – and interrogated about his coverage, as authorities accused him of being an opposition “propagandist”

Although Côte d’Ivoire passed a press law in 2017 abolishing prison terms for journalists, authorities have found other means to punish media content. In July 2022, investigative journalist Noël Konan was convicted of defamation and fined 3 million CFA francs (about $4,600) over a tweet alleging corruption, using a legal provision (Article 89 of the press law) that press advocates say should not be used to criminalise reporters’ speech

Authorities have shown little willingness to compromise, maintaining that the election will proceed as planned and warning that further “illegal” protests will be prevented. Interior Minister Diomandé justified the ban by saying it was necessary to “maintain public order” during the tense pre-election period.

In a Global South World interview, an Ivorian journalist shared fears over the integrity of the voter list, alleging that it includes thousands of foreign nationals, some of whom, he claims, are being used to swing the vote.

“If we go to the election with this electoral list, even if it is Jesus Christ, this president will win. Because he has put so many foreign people inside,” the journalist who spoke to Global South World on condition of anonymity. “There are some women inside who have 100 children. He will win. It is in his favour.”

“The real objective of the opposition is to make sure the election is not held on the 25th. Because if it is not held, from the 26th morning, he is no longer president,” the journalist added.

“Let us suppose the guy accepts that two principal opponents come on the list, no problem. There will be another problem. Because if the list is not cleaned, he will still win,” the journalist explained.

Côte d’Ivoire hosts a large immigrant population , and disputes over nationality and voter eligibility have long been volatile issues in its politics.

Conflicts in the 2000s were partly fueled by debates over who counted as “Ivorian”, a nationality issue now re-emerging and “raising concerns about the smooth running of the vote”

The final voter register lists 8.7 million people (in a country of 30 million, almost half under 18), yet authorities have ruled out any further revisions ahead of the election.

Critics say this refusal to audit the list despite reported irregularities undermines transparency. With the electoral commission insisting it’s independent and “respecting decisions of an independent judiciary,” the opposition remains sceptical

They argue that only a cleaned-up, credible voter list, free of unqualified or duplicate entries, can produce a legitimate outcome.

President Ouattara is seeking what opposition leaders describe as an unconstitutional fourth term, having already served since 2010.

“What is the most important? It is to check one by one, all people on the list, to see if they are Ivorian or not. The guy will refuse. Because if this list is cleared, he will never win – never, never, never,” the journalist added.

Simone Gbagbo: From first lady to opposition leader

Among Ouattara’s challengers is Simone Gbagbo, 76, a veteran political figure and former first lady. Once a close ally of her ex-husband and former president Laurent Gbagbo, she was arrested alongside him in 2011 after post-election violence that left around 3,000 people dead.

Convicted of crimes against the state and sentenced to 20 years in prison, she was granted amnesty in 2018. Now leading the Movement of Skilled Generations party, founded in 2022, Gbagbo has positioned herself as a voice for social justice . At her campaign launch early in October, she acknowledged Ouattara’s infrastructure gains but said Ivorians were demanding better health care and jobs.

Jean-Louis Billon: The Business-focused reformist

Businessman and former trade minister Jean-Louis Billon, 60, is contesting the election under the Democratic Congress, a coalition of 18 parties and movements. Billon had initially sought to represent the main opposition Democratic Party of Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI) but was sidelined after the party’s leader, Tidjane Thiam, was disqualified over dual nationality issues.

Billon has promised to modernize the public sector, curb corruption, and attract more private investment. He has also pledged to move some government offices to the political capital, Yamoussoukro, and to amend laws that restrict dual citizenship. “It’s time for Ouattara and his generation to leave the scene,” Billon said in a recent interview with Reuters.

Ahoua Don Mello: The independent nationalist

Ahoua Don Mello, 67, a former spokesperson for Laurent Gbagbo during the 2010–11 crisis, is running as an independent after being expelled from Gbagbo’s African People’s Party (PPA-CI) for defying its election boycott. He argues that participating in the vote is essential to avoid a repeat of 2020, when the opposition’s boycott handed Ouattara a landslide victory. Don Mello has called for Ivory Coast to abandon the CFA franc currency and revise its defence agreements with France . While critics accuse him of pushing a pro-Russian agenda, he recently told France 24 that he was not “Vladimir Putin’s man.”

Henriette Lagou Adjoua: The centrist advocate for women

Henriette Lagou Adjoua, 66, a former minister for social affairs and women’s affairs, is also joining the race. Representing the Group of Political Partners for Peace, a centrist coalition, she is campaigning on a platform of reconciliation and gender inclusion.

Adjoua, who also ran unsuccessfully in 2015, has urged Ivorians to heal the “wounds of the past” and push for greater female representation in politics. Her recent book, Why Not a Woman? , advocates for a more inclusive political landscape.

As Ouattara seeks to extend his long rule, the October 25 election will test Ivorians’ appetite for continuity versus change, and whether the country’s fractured opposition can mount a credible challenge.