Former Ivory Coast First Lady Simone Gbagbo has gone from hiding in a bunker to avoid arrest to defiantly announcing her bid for the presidency, staging one of the most unexpected political comebacks in Ivorian history.
The controversial 76-year-old was this week cleared to contest October’s presidential election, calling on supporters to help “build a new nation.” Once considered the power behind the throne during her ex-husband Laurent Gbagbo’s presidency, she is now stepping into the spotlight as a candidate in her own right.
Gbagbo, dubbed the country’s “iron lady” for her political toughness, served as Ivory Coast’s first lady from 2000 to 2011. While her supporters fondly called her maman (French for “mum”), she was feared even within the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI), the party she co-founded with Laurent.
“All the ministers respect me. And they often consider me above them,” she told French magazine L’Express during her husband’s presidency. At rallies, she often invoked her evangelical Christian faith, delivering fiery speeches in support of her husband.
Simone met Laurent Gbagbo in 1973 when both were rising figures in the country’s trade union movement. With degrees in history and linguistics, she was a leading voice in educators’ unions, and together the pair opposed the autocratic rule of then-president Félix Houphouët-Boigny, calling for multi-party democracy.
Their activism earned them repeated stints in prison. “I engaged in political struggle against the former regime alongside men,” she told L’Express. “I spent six months in prison, I was beaten, molested, left for dead. After all those trials, it’s logical that people don’t mess with me.”
The couple co-founded the FPI in 1982. While Laurent fled to France to escape harassment, Simone stayed behind to raise their twin daughters. When he returned years later, they married in a quiet ceremony and went on to lead the opposition together.
In 2000, after years of electoral turmoil, Laurent won the presidency, with Simone a key strategist by his side. But their rule soon turned repressive. Laurent’s backing of the divisive concept of Ivoirité helped ignite a civil conflict that split the nation. Human rights groups accused Simone of wielding heavy influence over security forces used to crush dissent.
When Laurent lost the 2010 presidential election to Alassane Ouattara, he refused to concede, plunging Ivory Coast into a five-month civil war that killed over 3,000 people. Simone fiercely defended his refusal to step down, declaring, “The time for debates about the elections between Gbagbo and the ‘bandit leader’ is over… Our president is firmly established in power and he is working.”
As pro-Ouattara forces backed by French troops closed in, the Gbagbos took refuge in a bunker. They were captured there, and photos of their arrest — the once powerful couple looking crestfallen on the edge of a bed — spread rapidly across the country.
At her trial five years later, Simone gave harrowing testimony. “I myself arrived with my buttocks exposed, my nudity exposed. I was subjected to several attempted rapes in broad daylight, all in the presence of French soldiers who were filming,” she told the court.
She was sentenced to 20 years for “attempting to undermine the security of the state” and other offenses, but President Ouattara granted her amnesty just three years later in a bid to promote reconciliation. The International Criminal Court also pursued charges against her in 2012, which were later dropped.
Laurent faced his own ICC trial for crimes against humanity, spending seven years in custody before being acquitted in 2019. When he returned to Ivory Coast in 2021, he quickly filed for divorce, having begun a relationship with journalist Nady Bamba. Simone accused him through her lawyer of “blatant and well-known adultery” and “abandonment of the marital home.”
Since then, Simone Gbagbo has methodically rebuilt her political base. She founded a new party, the Movement of Capable Generations (MGC), and has pledged to deliver a “modernised” and “prosperous” Ivory Coast if elected.
Her candidacy is symbolically potent in a country where women remain underrepresented—only 30% of Ivorian parliamentarians are women, and few hold top government roles. While her reputation for democratic ideals has been tarnished, she remains a formidable political force and one of the strongest challengers to President Ouattara in next month’s poll, especially after Laurent was barred from running.
This time, the spotlight will be firmly on Simone Gbagbo. And if she wins, the “iron lady” would not only rewrite her own tumultuous legacy but also make history as Ivory Coast’s first female president.