Former Ivory Coast president Henri Konan Bedie dies at 89

Ivory Coast’s former president Henri Konan Bedie has died aged 89 in hospital in Abidjan, a member of his party’s communications team told AFP late on Tuesday.

Bedie succeeded Ivory Coast’s post-colonial founding father, Felix Houphouet-Boigny, serving as president from 1993 to 1999 — when he was overthrown by the military in the country’s first-ever coup.

“A career politician, Bedie died at the Polyclinique Internationale Sainte Anne-Marie,” the party source said.

“A crowd had begun to gather outside his residence in Abidjan,”an AFP journalist said.

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The veteran politician had not ruled out running in the country’s next presidential election.

While in power, Bedie enforced a nationalist policy that discriminated against immigrants in favour of people with two Ivorianparents, affecting countless workers on the country’s cocoa plantations.

The measure was contrary to Houphouet-Boigny’s sustained efforts to uphold unity and played a part in the armed conflict and turmoil that erupted in 2000.