Alassane Ouattara

Biography

Alassane Ouattara was born in Dimbokro, Ivory Coast, in 1942, into a Muslim Dyula family descended from the rulers of the Kong Empire. He studied business at the Drexel Institute of Technology in Philadelphia and economics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he took a doctorate in 1972.

He spent most of his early career moving between the International Monetary Fund and the Central Bank of West African States (BCEAO): IMF economist from 1968, a series of BCEAO posts including vice governor, director of the IMF's African Department from 1984, and governor of the BCEAO from December 1988. Under an IMF-backed adjustment programme, President Houphouët-Boigny named him prime minister in November 1990, and he also ran the economy and finance ministry. After Houphouët-Boigny's death in December 1993 he lost a brief succession struggle to Henri Konan Bédié, resigned, and returned to the IMF as deputy managing director from 1994 to 1999.

As leader of the opposition Rally of the Republicans from 1999, he was repeatedly kept out of presidential races by nationality rules aimed at him, a dispute that fed into the civil war of 2002. He finally stood in 2010 and was declared the winner over Laurent Gbagbo, who refused to concede; the standoff ended only in April 2011 after fighting in which UN and French forces acted against Gbagbo.

Ouattara was re-elected in 2015 with a large majority. His decision to seek a third term in 2020, which the Constitutional Court allowed, set off violent protests and an opposition boycott, and he won a fourth term in October 2025.