The Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire African Democratic Rally (French: Parti Démocratique de la Côte d'Ivoire Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, PDCI-RDA) is a political party in Côte d'Ivoire. From independence in 1960 to 1990 it was the only legal party, and was led by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. In 1990 the first multi-party elections took place, but the party remained in power. When Houphouët-Boigny died in 1993 he was replaced by Henri Konan Bédié. The party lost power when Bédié was ousted in a December 1999 coup.
The PDCI announced in early 2000 that it would hold a congress to choose new leadership, and Bédié denounced this as a "putsch";[1] the party decided to retain Bédié in the leadership, however. In August, Bédié and four other PDCI members registered as candidates in the October 2000 presidential election; shortly afterward, Emile Constant Bombet, who had served as Interior Minister under Bédié, defeated Bédié for the PDCI presidential nomination. Bombet and Bédié were both barred from running by the Constitutional Court in early October, and on October 10 Bédié called for a boycott of the election.
In the parliamentary election held on 10 December 2000 and 14 January 2001, the party won 94 out of 225 seats.
On 18 May 2005, the PDCI and the Rally of the Republicans (RDR), despite a history of hostility towards one another, signed an agreement to form a coalition, the Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace, along with two smaller parties, the Union for Democracy and Peace in Côte d'Ivoire (UDPCI) and the Movement of the Forces of the Future (MFA), ahead of the presidential election then planned for October 2005. This election was delayed and is now planned to be held in 2009.
