The President of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, has appointed as interim Prime Minister the Secretary General of the Presidency, Patrick Achi, who will thus occupy the post vacated by the incumbent, Hamed Bakayoko, who was transferred abroad in February due to a health problem.
Ouattara’s decree, published by the Presidency through its account on the social network Twitter, also provides that the Minister of Presidential Affairs, Téné Birahima Ouattara, will temporarily occupy the functions of Minister of Defense, a portfolio also headed by Bakayoko.
Bakayoko, 56, was transferred to France to be admitted to a hospital in the country’s capital, Paris, although a further deterioration of his condition has led to his second transfer over the weekend, this time to a German hospital, according to sources quoted by the Koaci news portal.
The Prime Minister took office in July 2020 following the sudden death of Amadou Gon Coulibaly, who was also the candidate of the Grouping of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP) for the October 31 presidential election.
The death of Gon Coulibaly shortly after his return from Paris, where he had been receiving medical care, led the president to backtrack on his pledge not to seek a third term and to run again in the polls, triggering a serious political crisis.
Bakayoko has also been absent from the parliamentary elections held on Saturday, which come after a process of dialogue between the government and the opposition and with which the African country hopes to leave behind the aforementioned crisis generated in the wake of the presidential elections.
