France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
following independence in 1960, and from 1966 to 1977 he served in the government as Minister of Economy and Finance. While serving as Finance Minister, Bédié became the first Chairman of the IMF and
World Bank
The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Inte ...
's joint Development Committee, holding that post from 1974 to 1976. He was Special Advisor to the
World Bank Group
The World Bank Group (WBG) is a family of five international organizations that make leveraged loans to developing countries. It is the largest and best-known development bank in the world and an observer at the United Nations Development Gr ...
's
International Finance Corporation
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of ...
from 1978 to 1980. In 1980, Bédié was elected to the
National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire
The National Assembly is lower house of the Parliament of Ivory Coast since November 2016. From 1960 to 2016, the National Assembly was Ivory Coast's unicameral legislative body. Evolved from semi-representative bodies of the French Colonial p ...
, and he was then elected as President of the National Assembly in December 1980. He was re-elected as President of the National Assembly in 1985 and 1990.
As National Assembly President, Bédié succeeded long-time President
Félix Houphouët-Boigny
Félix Houphouët-Boigny (; 18 October 1905 – 7 December 1993), affectionately called Papa Houphouët or Le Vieux ("The Old One"), was the first president of Ivory Coast, serving from 1960 until his death in 1993. A tribal chief, he wo ...
. He announced that he was assuming the presidency on state television a few hours after Houphouët-Boigny's death on December 7, 1993. A brief power struggle between Bédié and Prime Minister Alassane Ouattara ensued; Bédié was successful and Ouattara resigned as Prime Minister on December 9. Bédié was subsequently elected as President of the PDCI in April 1994. Per the Constitution, he served as acting president for the balance of Houphouët-Boigny's seventh term.
As President, Bédié encouraged national stability but was accused of political repression and stratospheric levels of corruption. In the October 1995 presidential election, the electoral code was amended to require presidential candidates to have been born of two Ivorian parents and have resided in the country for five years prior to the election. These provisions were thought to have been aimed at Ouattara. He had resided in the United States since 1990 while serving as deputy managing director of the
International Monetary Fund
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is a major financial agency of the United Nations, and an international financial institution, headquartered in Washington, D.C., consisting of 190 countries. Its stated mission is "working to foster glo ...
Ivorian Popular Front
The Ivorian Popular Front (french: Front populaire ivoirien; abbr. FPI) is a centre-left, democratic socialist and social democratic political party in Ivory Coast.
FPI was founded in exile in 1982 by history professor Laurent Gbagbo, Aboudrama ...
(FPI), decided to boycott the election, and Bédié won the election with 96% of the vote.
Bédié was overthrown in a military coup on December 24, 1999, after he rejected the demands of soldiers who rebelled on December 23; one of these demands was for the release of members of the RDR. Retired general Robert Guéï became president. Bédié fled to a French military base before leaving Côte d'Ivoire by helicopter on December 26 and going to
Togo
Togo (), officially the Togolese Republic (french: République togolaise), is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Ghana to the west, Benin to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. It extends south to the Gulf of Guinea, where its c ...
, along with family members. Upon his arrival at the airport in
Lomé
Lomé is the capital and largest city of Togo. It has an urban population of 837,437
, he was greeted by Togolese President Gnassingbé Eyadéma.
Bédié departed Togo on January 3, 2000 and went to Paris. 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. An international arrest warrant for Bédié and Niamien N'Goran, who had served under Bédié as Finance Minister, was issued in early June 2000 for alleged theft of public funds. Speaking on French television, Bédié said that he was not worried that he might be returned to Côte d'Ivoire to face trial at the hands of a government that he deemed illegal, expressing his "faith in the law of France".
He registered as a candidate in the October 2000 presidential election, although Emile Constant Bombet, who had served as Interior Minister under Bédié, defeated him for the PDCI presidential nomination in August. Bédié was barred from running by the Constitutional Court, along with Bombet, and on October 10 Bédié called for a boycott of the election.
On June 23, 2001,
Laurent Gbagbo
Koudou Laurent Gbagbo , FPI website . ( "COTE D'IVOIRE: Former, current presidents address reconciliation forum" IRIN, November 14, 2001. A few days later, the 11th Ordinary Congress of the PDCI was postponed indefinitely at his request.
Bédié spoke at a national reconciliation forum on November 12, 2001. He attributed the country's political crisis to the December 1999 coup and he urged all Ivorian politicians to denounce the coup. He also said that the nationalistic concept of ''Ivorité'', which was promoted during his presidency, was an attempt to bolster "cultural identity" and not a means of political exclusion. According to critics of ''Ivorité'', it was divisive, xenophobic, and intended to eliminate political competition from Ouattara—who was claimed to be the son of Burkinabé parents—but Bédié rejected this criticism. When the PDCI Congress was eventually held in April 2002, Bédié defeated Laurent Dona Fologo for the party leadership; he received 82% of the vote.
Bédié later spent another year in France, returning to Côte d'Ivoire on September 11, 2005. Upon his return, he said that President Gbagbo should not remain in office after the end of his term in October 2005 and that a transitional government should be installed.
In an interview with
Agence France Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D. ...
on May 20, 2007, he said that he would be the PDCI candidate in the next presidential election, which was then expected to be held in 2008.
Bédié addressed a rally in Dabou on September 22, 2007, in which he declared the need for a "shock treatment" to return the country to normal,Loucoumane Coulibaly "Opposition leader unveils recovery plan" Reuters (''IOL''), September 24, 2007. promised to restore the economy, and strongly criticized Gbagbo.
In June 2020 Bédié announced that he would run in the October presidential election on behalf of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire.