ASINT / Geopolitics & Risks
The election and its political arithmetic
The October 26, 2025 presidential election in Côte d’Ivoire unfolded under conditions of relative calm and logistical order, with preliminary indications pointing toward a clear victory for incumbent President Alassane Ouattara. At 83 years old, Ouattara is poised to extend his leadership into a fourth term, consolidating more than a decade of economic growth, infrastructure expansion, and macroeconomic stability. The 2025 presidential election period saw unrest: at least 11 deaths and over 1,650 arrests were reported after the Government imprisoned or banned main opposition leaders. Near-term policy continuity is likely after Ouattara’s new term. However, he is among the oldest leaders at 83 years old. In the medium term, succession planning for 2030 is the main uncertainty for policy predictability. The political arithmetic of the 2025 election is not the same as the political economy that the IMF programme documented in this series validated through six consecutive quarterly reviews. The exclusion of four major opposition figures, Tidjane Thiam, Laurent Gbagbo, Charles Ble Goude, and Guillaume Soro, from the electoral process narrowed the competitive field in a way that produces political clarity in the short term and political fragility in the medium term. An opposition that cannot participate cannot legitimate the outcome it loses, which means that the post-election legitimacy question remains open in opposition-leaning regions even as the macroeconomic indicators continue improving.
The market metrics that matter
In December 2025, Fitch Ratings upgraded Côte d’Ivoire’s long-term foreign-currency credit rating from ‘BB-‘ to ‘BB’ with a stable outlook. Fiscal consolidation is progressing in line with WAEMU convergence criteria, with the general government deficit expected to narrow to -3.1% of GDP during 2026 and further to -3.0% in 2027-2028. External buffers are also strengthening as usable foreign exchange reserves are projected to rise from $10.9 billion in 2025 to $15.0 billion by 2028, increasing months of import cover from 3.2 to 5.0. Furthermore, in March 2025, Côte d’Ivoire issued a $1.75 billion Eurobond with an 11-year maturity, attracting strong investor demand and oversubscription, and also bought back $700 million of earlier Eurobonds to smooth future repayments, confirming its continued access to international capital markets. The Fitch upgrade from BB- to BB is the most institutionally significant of these metrics because it moves Côte d’Ivoire into a higher tier of the sub-investment-grade spectrum. The one-notch upgrade reflects the IMF programme completion documented in this series, where six consecutive quarterly reviews without a single performance criterion missed validated the fiscal management quality that rating agencies use as their primary scoring metric. The $1.75 billion Eurobond at 11-year maturity, oversubscribed by international investors, is the market’s direct translation of that rating improvement into financing cost: Côte d’Ivoire can borrow long-dated capital at terms that reflect its institutional upgrade rather than its historical risk profile. Real GDP growth is expected at 5.5% in 2026 and 5.1% in 2027, significantly outpacing its Western African neighbours such as Nigeria and Ghana. Inflation is projected to remain among the lowest on the African continent. The 5.5% growth projection against Nigeria’s and Ghana’s significantly lower trajectories is the regional positioning argument that Côte d’Ivoire makes to foreign direct investors selecting a West Africa entry point.
The security perimeter and the Sahel exposure
Externally, spillovers from Sahel insecurity remain the key geopolitical risk channel. Instability may arise from external sources as Côte d’Ivoire’s three northern neighbours, Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea, are all ruled by military juntas with diverging success. In Mali, security threats remain from extremist groups which control vast parts of the country, resulting in large inflows of refugees to Côte d’Ivoire. By January 2026, the UN Refugee Agency had registered more than 70,000 refugees from Burkina Faso in the northern region of Côte d’Ivoire. The 70,000 registered Burkina Faso refugees in northern Côte d’Ivoire is the most precise measurement of how Sahel security dynamics are materialising in concrete, human, and fiscal terms inside Côte d’Ivoire’s borders. Refugee flows create humanitarian costs, pressure on local social services, and security management requirements that the government must absorb without allowing them to divert the fiscal and administrative capacity that the 2026-2030 National Development Plan’s investment ambitions require. The northern border’s security dynamics also affect the agricultural corridors that connect Côte d’Ivoire’s cotton and cashew producing northern prefectures to Abidjan’s processing and export infrastructure. The West Africa rice trade restriction dynamics documented in this series, where border disruptions along the Sahel trade corridors create food security pressure, apply to Côte d’Ivoire’s northern supply chains with the same structural logic. For investors assessing Côte d’Ivoire’s mining pipeline, the Kone, Boundiali, and Lafigue gold projects documented in this series all sit in the northern mining belt that is closest to the Burkina Faso and Mali border security perimeter. Political and security stability in Côte d’Ivoire’s north is not separable from investment delivery in its gold sector.