We have a magnificent country, and the Ivorian people are the most magnificent of all peoples when they are united, united in joy like this afternoon. So thank you for this welcome. I also asked, if everything goes well, to be rewarded with a second round after my speech.
Mr. Executive Secretary in Chief, Mr. President of the Organizing Committee, Mr. High Representative, Mr. Special Advisor to the President of the Party, Mr. Director General of the PDCI, Mr. Inspector General, Madam Grand Chancellor of the Order of the Merit, Mr. Vice President of the Assembly, whom I ask you to applaud. Madam Delegate of Bassam, Madam Minister, ladies of the FPDCI, ladies and gentlemen of the JPDCI, honorable traditional chiefs, honorable religious chiefs, militants of the PDCI RDA, dear population of the South Comoé district, I thank you for coming in such large numbers and congratulate you for this extraordinary mobilization. Everyone can see it. I thank you for the warm welcome you have reserved for me and the entire delegation accompanying me.
I want to salute here with the deepest respect, without forgetting anyone, all the administrative and traditional personalities, all the political personnel of the region, the High Representative, the delegates, our valiant section secretaries general, whom everyone should applaud, the presidents of base committees, as well as our specialized structures, EF and JPDCI, the foundation of our action on the ground. A big thank you to the valiant population of the region who spared no effort in record time to come in great numbers to welcome and listen to us. Thank you all.
I would not want to forget either in my thanks what we too often forget, namely the organizers, those who worked all night so that this square has the appearance we know today. This afternoon they worked tirelessly and I really want to thank them because work must always be recognized. So thank you to all the sound technicians who worked and allow us to have quality sound and a very beautiful setting for this meeting.
I am personally very happy to be in the South Comoé region, a mythical region of our country. The South Comoé has given our country and our party a great number of illustrious personalities who are our pride. The city of Abobo holds strategic importance for the PDCI RDA, both historically and politically. An anchor point for the party since the first hours of our struggle for independence, Abobo has always supported the ideals of the PDCI RDA. Abobo is simply an electoral stronghold of the party.
Abobo represents for us a place of memory that also presents real economic potential for the growth and development of our country. It is in Abobo, and not by chance, that I am here for my second major district visit after Soubré a few months ago. And we are not just anywhere in Abobo. Today we are in a square that bears the name of one of the most illustrious sons of the region, Dr. Elingan Alexis, an emblematic figure, an influential member of the PDCI RDA. His commitment made him a universally respected and admired personality by the militants and cadres of the party.
Twenty-one years after he left us, his faith in the power of dialogue, his strength as a builder of consensus continue to guide us. At this stage of my speech, I would like to pause to respectfully and warmly salute our mother, President Henriette Konan Bédié. We love her and are always fully by her side. As God does things well, as you were told yesterday, Friday, I had the honor to go and greet her at the head of an important PDCI delegation and inform her that I would be here today. She rejoiced in this initiative and gave us her blessing for everything to go well here at her home.
Just as an anecdote, when I was in the car between Abidjan and Abobo today, my phone rang, and it shows her elegance and delicacy, and it was she herself calling to thank me for yesterday, when it should have been me thanking her. She had the humility to call me to say thank you, and that is an example. She is the very incarnation of the women of this region: courageous, generous, benevolent, and like Mama Henriette, very beautiful.
After her, we also visited yesterday, it was a very busy day, President Thérèse Fofie, who gave me advice again. At 94 years old, God bless her. We evoked together memories of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, childhood memories, and she gave her blessing to me and the PDCI delegation that accompanied me.
So it is fitting, in the heart of this beautiful region, to take a moment to evoke the unique and primordial place and role of women in our party. It was December 22, 1949, exactly 75 years ago, almost to the day, that our PDCI women, true Amazons, marched for three days in Grand Bassam to demand the release of our political leaders imprisoned by the French colonial authorities. What an example, what courage! Let us salute them again.
I must say, without fear of betraying a secret, that women are a key part of my electoral strategy. Last Sunday alone, there were several hundred women at the party headquarters in Cocody, and women have always played, continue to play, and will play even more in the future, an absolutely central role in the life of our party. I took this commitment when you elected me, and I have worked tirelessly in this direction and I keep my word.
So last Saturday, I personally committed with all the PDCI leaders so that one of our most valiant militants, Béatrice Assoumou, would be elected mayor of Anouaba. A great victory for our party, and we salute her again. Today, at the PDCI, we have women of all ages fully engaged in political action. I also want to congratulate my sister Linda Diplo, departmental delegate of Grand Bassam, for the work she does on the ground.
A big thank you also to Mr. Mayor, the High Representative of the President of the party in the South Comoé district, Mr. Jérémy, who through his action and attachment to the PDCI constitutes the cornerstone of our party's influence in the region. I associate with these thanks the Vice President, George Philippe Esalé, my special advisor, a man of courage and integrity, and I can testify because we both restructured the airport sector in Côte d'Ivoire a long time ago now. And his political excellence is an inestimable contribution to the march of our party.
Finally, I would like to thank my close collaborator, the deputy mayor of Port-Bouët, an illustrious cadre of your region, Sylvester. The PDCI is not a one-man show; we work as a team. So I continue with the thanks and greetings. I associate with these greetings Mr. Jean-Paul Amétier, mayor of Bonoua, who was decorated today, Mr. Anoma Magire, whom we heard earlier, Mr. Am Kensi, whom I saw earlier, and all the other cadres, the men and women to whom I ask forgiveness for not being able to name them here, but we have so many cadres from your region in the PDCI that I could continue until 8 PM.
So we must continue, so forgive me for those I could not name, but the PDCI is brimming with talent that the district has provided. I pay tribute to them for the important work they do and the fight they lead every day for your region, for our great party, and for Côte d'Ivoire. It is important, I know it takes time, but for me, these thanks are important because I say, when you have no memory, you have no future. When you have no memory, you have no future. And we are a party that has memory.
That is why, just before closing my first year at the head of our great party, I wanted to decorate our great elders yesterday, December 20, at the Party House during a beautiful and moving ceremony. So, dear militants, it is one year, more or less, since I was elected to the head of our great party. We are here to celebrate together the vitality and dynamism of our party. I will not, therefore, in front of you this afternoon, review all the events of the last 12 months. It has been partly done, whether it is the funeral of President Bédié, for whom we have a moving thought each time, since June 23, the reorganization of the party since March, the preparation and then the conduct of the revision of the electoral list, to name just a few.
I will convene a meeting later to take stock of everything that has been done. I simply wish to mark here our recognition and that of the party to all the militants, with at their head the interim president, today honorary president, who allowed our party to write a new page in its history. Thank you to you and to all the militants. And I also want to salute the one who was our executive secretary for so many years. I have already done it, but one can never say thank you too many times, Maurice Kakou.
So, in the work we have started, I am often told about vision. I will say a few words and then I will come back to it, but we have identified six themes and I will list them. The first is peace and security, and the orientation I have given on this is an Ivory Coast at peace within its borders and at peace with its neighbors. Peace is the foundation of everything and the fundamental value of the PDCI RDA, the refusal of violence. Peace. And one cannot be at peace when one is not at peace with one's neighbors, whether at the level of a family or a country. So we have working groups working on this and concrete proposals will be made, but it is important to know the philosophy with which we approach this work.
Which is peace and really reconciliation, harmony among Ivorians, which we try to exemplify at the PDCI with around me people of different convictions, different points of view. It is in gathering that we do the best work. The second point is human capital. You have often heard me talk about this: an Ivorian citizen well-trained, well-educated, and in good health. There is much to do on this point, I will come back to it. Economy and equity. I chose this title because the economy without equity is nothing. If you grow, you create growth without equity, it is very easy. What is difficult is to produce equitable growth, growth that benefits everyone, and that requires reflection and effort. Otherwise, reckless growth in disorder is not what we should do in a country.
So equity, equity for me is a really fundamental value. I dream of an Ivory Coast where a child, wherever they are born on the national territory, has the same chances of success. Equity. The fourth theme is society. We said a diverse but inclusive society. The two go together. If you are diverse but practice exclusion, you are heading for catastrophe. Diversity is only a wealth if it is lived inclusively. It is not about excluding those who are different from you; it is about accepting them, recognizing them, respecting them, and including them.
So a society where everyone's rights are respected, where one is not arrested for their ideas, and where everyone can make their voice heard without fear, without fear, without fear, without fear. Well, the fifth, you will forgive me, but indeed I am an engineer, so it is new technologies. Using new technologies to improve the well-being of populations. It ranges from solar to what we call fintech, digital financial companies, Mobile Money is an application of that, which you all know, but there are many others. And the last theme is sustainable development, because producing a straw fire is easy. What is difficult is to have results over time, sustainably, not a straw fire and then a catastrophe. So sustainable development is also an objective.
But to close this chapter, I would say the priority of priorities, in the direct line of the eternal convictions of the PDCI, is human capital. Man is at the beginning and at the end of development. There is no development plan worth anything if it does not lead to the development of human capital. But I want to add a comment because often people tell me, yes, but we want to hear your vision, and you will see that it is not something on which I spend a lot of time. Why? Because a vision is worth no more than the word of the one who states it. So when you hear visions, first ask yourself if the one making you promises is someone who keeps their word.
I will repeat approximately, because I spoke to you with my heart, it is not in my speech. So what I say is that promises are worth no more than the word of the one who makes them to you. So you must not only ask yourself, did they promise A, B, C, or D, but is the person making you this promise a person of their word? So that is why in my speeches, for those who have listened to me, there are not many promises, because I consider myself bound by my promises. So I make few because I make promises that I can currently fulfill.
Well, I will move quickly over decentralization. We spoke of the High Representative, but that is a change whose objective is to bring the party leadership closer to the ground and to give geographical responsibilities to those who make decisions. There are three other High Representatives, and it is a process in gestation. Nothing is perfect at the beginning, we improve it, but I think it is a positive change. I will rather stop on the revision of the electoral lists because that is a really important subject. I had pointed out as early as March that one of the major weaknesses of our democracy is the low enrollment rate of our populations on the electoral lists.
Our party mobilized to communicate to all our compatriots the capital importance of the electoral list revision operation that took place a few weeks ago. Thanks to our action and that of many partners, we obtained advances, notably the free national certificate, the residence certificate, the cancellation of the expiration of receipts, the unconditional acceptance of the new format national ID card, the extension of the operation deadline, etc. We traveled through villages, enrollment offices, to meet the populations. We visited more than 10 cities, more than 6 of the 10 communes of Abidjan to raise awareness among the populations. All these efforts led nearly 1.5 million Ivorians to visit the centers. Normally in 4 weeks, that is not nothing. In a country with 7.8 million enrolled, it is a lot. It is a level never reached in previous exercises.
But the law requires the government to carry out an annual revision. We now demand a revision in 2025 and ideally in February. Everyone has been able to see that the production of national certificates was a major obstacle. There are now hundreds of thousands of Ivorians determined to re-enroll and having the necessary papers. In the name of democracy and for a peaceful election whose results will be recognized by all, the government must organize such a revision in 2025, and no Ivorian who wishes to register must find a closed door.
Another major point for us will be the process of proclaiming the results after the presidential elections, and we are fighting to obtain a real proclamation, polling station by polling station, as is done in the countries around us, which have recently shown their level of democratic maturity. The examples of Senegal and Ghana, two countries that have managed to live a political alternation in peace, are examples to follow everywhere. So we see the leaders and militants of our great party at work. Not a single day goes by without a meeting, a seminar, a large-scale work meeting taking place somewhere in our country. The PDCI is back.
We are not far from Ghana here, so I would say, as our Anglophone friends, PDCI. Our party is a few months away from returning to power after more than 25 years in opposition, and all together, more determined and united than ever, we will succeed. The PDCI RDA wants state power so that the living conditions of Ivorians improve, so that Côte d'Ivoire is admired, a deep admiration that draws its roots not only from infrastructure but from the values and virtues of our people, articulated around human capital at the center of priorities.
Ladies and gentlemen, we must rethink the education of our country and allow everyone to have access to appropriate and quality healthcare. Everyone knows the current situation is not satisfactory. The quality of education and health performance is declining. That is why I insisted on our country's HDI ranking, which synthesizes all this. Teachers, we know, were the cherished children of President Félix Houphouët-Boigny and then President Henriette Konan Bédié, and we will make them the cherished children of the Republic starting in October 2025.
Only education and regular efforts can guarantee success. Education is the future of our nation, and one must always invest in one's future. The level of expression and writing has been declining for so many years, for a certain number of years, and all parents of students and Ivorians note it. According to the PASEC education system analysis program, our country is among the weakest performers in Francophone Africa. This is not acceptable.
Just like education, the health system must be reviewed and adapted to the increasingly growing needs of Ivorians. The health coverage promised to Ivorians is not working well. We have personal experience in insurance. I extended health insurance and developed health insurance throughout Asia for years as CEO of Prudential, and it is a sector I know well. So that is really something I can bring here to our country. We will propose a more realistic and pragmatic approach that will facilitate access to quality care for Ivorian populations.
We are a poor country, and yet attention to the most disadvantaged is not always what it should be. We have proof of this in all the demolition operations of housing, evictions without social support measures and without humanism. I spent the afternoon the day before yesterday in Yopougon with the children of the evicted to offer them a Christmas, and at first there were 200, we went to 400, and finally there were 500, and we know very well that we are far from the count, far from the count. It is a drop in the ocean, and all this is not normal.
Our children and adolescents, in addition to young people and women, instead of being in schools, are forced to transform themselves into granite stone crushers at the foot of mountains or into illegal gold panners to survive. Inflation is unbearable. The prices of foodstuffs are increasing. For example, the price of a liter of oil went from 950 francs last year to 1,375 francs this year. The baguette of bread went from 150 to 200 francs over the same period. The price of a 25 kg bag of rice went from 14,000 to 17,500 from last year to this year, and the examples are numerous. I just took a few examples.
Well, I have almost finished. So maybe you will let me make a little joke, but I will tell you a little story. For me, it is the story of the jealous and neglectful husband. So it is a husband, let's say he has been married for 14 years, and at the beginning, to be fair, the marriage was going well. The first few years were good and there were real achievements and progress. But little by little, things deteriorated. The husband takes much less care of the wife. She is poorly fed. Among the children, he does not take very good care of their education. They are hungry, they are not happy. After a while, he even starts to beat the wife when she complains. He beats her when she says she is hungry. He beats her when she says she is not happy. He says she should be happy.
No, I am not talking about a person, it is a fable. It is a woman, it is a little story I invented. And when she complains, he says, but I repainted the walls. She says, but I am hungry. He says, if you don't see how beautiful the walls are, the paint is all new. Well, there is someone new who has arrived in town, and the heart of the woman, now every time she sees this person, her heart beats, her heart beats.
Hello. Well, we all have love relationships. So when it is like that, there is a strategy which is to say, they will do nothing, it is a fool, don't look at him, he doesn't pay his taxes, he was away for 23 years, he does nothing. There is another strategy which is to take better care of his wife, offer her flowers, perhaps offer her new clothes, be nicer to the children. You ensure that the first strategy there does not work. I think we have all lived that. If you want your spouse to be more interested in that person, you have to continue attacking that person every day. Everyone knows that, it doesn't work, it only increases their interest.
Ah, but really, that person must be really interesting because to generate so much attack, acrimony, criticism, it must be something. So maybe she wants to leave. So there are those who say, maybe we will recruit some thugs so we can corner her so she can't leave next year. But there is a subtlety because if the new person has a reputation for taking good care of children, but the thugs have children too, they have children too, and sometimes their children get sick. So even the thugs on whom we count, maybe they say, but finally, maybe it is better to have a system where my children can be well-educated, have a better life than me, and be well cared for. Anyway, I stop there.
I will leave you, but I am serious, it is really not a personal attack. I would say that in fact, the husband, it is a certain way of governing, really, I don't know, it is a certain way of governing, and the wife, the spouse, is Côte d'Ivoire, and there are different ways of governing, that is all I say. Well, we are the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire. In any human and especially democratic organization, the clash of ideas and ambitions is a living, constant, and necessary reality, and it is normal. We must, however, keep in mind to preserve the essentials: cohesion, respect, and fraternity. Serving the Ivorian people is a privilege and must be considered as such.
It has been 25 years that we have been deprived of this privilege and that we are in opposition. In a few months, we will be able, in the Union, to put an end to this situation. We will go to our convention to officially invest our candidate for the presidency in serenity, in unity, and cohesion. We have all the assets to come to power, and you can count on me to ensure that we win the victory. Do not be afraid, do not be afraid, do not be afraid.
We must work methodically, with seriousness and determination. We must do politics without violence, idea against idea, in the sole interest of Côte d'Ivoire and Ivorians. I count on you all to vote massively in 2025 and to convince everyone around you to vote massively. I said it, I repeat it, it is the ballot that will give us the quality education to which our children and we are entitled. It is the ballot that will give us the healthcare to which we are entitled, that will give us security, peace. In a word, it is the ballot that will shape our daily lives and our future.
Our opponents know they will be defeated and that the PDCI RDA will return to power, God willing, at the end of October 2025. Let us prepare, let us redouble our ardor for the return of the PDCI to power so that our country regains peace, progress for all, and happiness for everyone. Long live the PDCI RDA, long live Côte d'Ivoire. Thank you.
