Even a brilliant worldwide corporate career cannot prepare you for the harsh reality of politics in Ivory Coast, where some doubt the democratic credentials of the West African nation best known for producing much of the world's cocoa and some of its best football players.
That is the harsh lesson Tidjane Thiam is learning as he waits to see if deal-making in the corridors of power and popular street pressure can save his quest for Ivory Coast's presidency.
On 22 April, a judge determined that the 62-year-old had lost his Ivorian citizenship by accepting French nationality decades ago and not withdrawing it until too late to qualify for this year's election.
When Thiam returned to Ivory Coast in 2022 after more than two decades in global finance, he was immediately viewed as a potential successor to incumbent President Alassane Ouattara, who, at 83, is in the penultimate year of his third term.
In the 1990s, he served as a key government official and minister, supervising infrastructure development and economic reforms. He comes from an aristocratic family and is a grand nephew of the country's founding President, Félix Houphouët-Boigny.
A military takeover prompted Thiam to pursue a new career abroad, culminating in high-profile periods as CEO of UK insurance company Prudential and then banking conglomerate Credit Suisse.
But three years ago, he returned home and began a steady march toward the next Ivorian presidential election.
Thiam was excellently positioned to succeed former President Henri Konan Bédié, long-serving head of the opposition Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI), after his death in 2023, and he was picked as the party's presidential candidate on April 17, this year.
That was no guarantee of victory, especially if, as appears likely, Ouattara runs for a fourth term, supported by all of the assets and advantages of incumbency, as well as a track record of four consecutive years of annual economic growth above 6%.
However, Thiam stood out as the best alternative.
As an opponent of the ruling Rally of Houphouëtists for Democracy and Peace (RHDP), he allowed Ivorian voters to change their government.
Nonetheless, with his moderate politics and strong technocratic credentials, his candidacy provided comforting competence and the promise of maintaining Ouattara's outstanding economic development since 2011.
That prospective course is now obstructed. Thiam will be eliminated from the October battle if the court ruling stands, and Ivorian law does not allow for an appeal in this case.
It is a race from which three other prominent opposition figures - former President Laurent Gbagbo, former Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, and a former minister, Charles Blé Goudé - have already been barred. All three were central actors in the political crises and civil conflicts that brutally stalled the Ivory Coast's progress from 1999 to 2011.
The likelihood today is that Ouattara or any chosen RHDP successor candidate will enter the race without facing a major political threat.
That can only exacerbate Ivorians' already considerable public dissatisfaction with the country's political system.
This contrasts with the broader environment of West Africa, where the radical anti-politics rhetoric of the troops who have seized power in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger has already found a sympathetic audience among many disillusioned young people.
That is especially important in nations where three-quarters of the population is under 35.
There have been some encouraging moments in the middle of the West African democracy crisis.
In Liberia in 2023, as well as in Senegal and Ghana last year, incumbent governments were deposed in free and fair elections in which all contestants accepted the results without dispute.
The Senegalese outcome, in particular, owes largely to the tremendous, passionate mobilization of young people.
Many people anticipated that Ivory Coast could provide another great example of democratic choice and the offer of change, one that would be even more influential given the country's economic strength.
It is the economic engine of the CFA franc single currency bloc, and in addition to cocoa, it is a vital hub for commercial services and banking, as well as a leading political voice in the Economic Community of West African States.
What happens in Ivory Coast is significant and extensively noted throughout West Africa and, more broadly, francophone Africa.
Ouattara is one of the continent's most renowned statesmen, and he enjoys widespread worldwide esteem.
Nonetheless, the buildup to the country's critical next presidential election has become engulfed in a resurgence of the identity politics that soured the severe disagreements and instability of the 1990s and 2000s.
Back then, the governments of first Bédié and later Gbagbo utilized the contentious "ivoirité," or "Ivorian-ness," law to prevent Ouattara from running for president on the basis that his family purportedly had foreign origins.
Only in 2007 did the government lift the restriction on his candidacy, and it wasn't until 2016, when he was already in power, that a new constitution finally removed the requirement that presidential candidates' stated parents be native-born Ivorians.
The poisonous mobilisation of identity problems contributed significantly to the civil conflicts, street violence, and northern separatist division that cruelly disfigured Ivory Coast for more than a decade, up to 2011, costing thousands of lives.
Today, the country feels far from such a large-scale war.
There is no public appetite for a return to confrontation, and leaders are avoiding the inflammatory rhetoric of the past.
However, the Thiam story demonstrates how identity problems can still have a significant impact, even in a more legalistic and hopefully more peaceful era.
Ivory Coast only allows dual nationality under specific conditions.
So, in its 22 April decision, an Abidjan court ruled that, under the wording of a little-used post-independence law, Thiam automatically lost his Ivorian citizenship nearly four decades ago when he earned French nationality, following several years of study in Paris.
Although he officially resigned in February and therefore regained his previous citizenship, it was too late to be included on this year's registration of eligible voters or candidates.
His lawyers had unsuccessfully contended that Thiam possessed French nationality from birth via his father, which, if accepted, would free him from the dual nationality prohibition.
Seeking to underline the absurdity and absurdities of the situation, he said that the country should immediately return its treasured 2024 Africa Cup of Nations football title because many of the players are also French citizens.
"If we apply the law the way that they just applied it to me, we have to give the cup back to Nigeria - because half of the team was not Ivorian," he said to the British broadcaster.
And a scheduled court hearing on Thursday could result in another setback, with a judge ruling that Thiam cannot lead the PDCI since he is a non-national.
The past two weeks have seen ongoing political and legal debate over this entire saga, with the Thiam camp hoping that a combination of popular pressure and discreet political negotiation will result in a compromise that allows him to re-enter the presidential race, possibly alongside the other excluded candidates.
And, if he chooses not to run, Ouattara may seek to protect his great track record and international reputation by intervening with an arrangement that permits Thiam to run.
With months until the election, there is still time for that. But nobody is betting on it.
Paul Melly is a consulting fellow with the Africa Programme at Chatham House in London.
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