The Iron Lady, filmed in the chairmanship of Cott D’Ivoire

Former first lady of Cott D’Ivoire Simone Gbagbo has moved from hiding to a hopper in an attempt to avoid arrest to challenging that he will run for president.

In the extremely return of the controversial 76-year-old, it was surprisingly allowed to compete to challenge the October elections, urging supporters to help “build a new nation”.

For years, Gbagbo has worked side by side with his ex -husband Laurent and was considered the power behind his throne.

Now, with a criminal sentence and a divorce behind her, she takes a central scene as a presidential candidate in itself.

Gbagbo was the first lady of Cott D’Ivoire from 2000 to 2011 and was called the “Iron Lady” because of her reputation of strength.

While her supporters apparently called her “Maman” (French for “Mom”), Gbagbo was afraid of the party she created with her husband, the popular front of Yvorian (FPI).

“All the ministers respect me. And they often think about them,” she told the French magazine L’Express during her husband’s presidency.

At the rallies, Gbagbo often refers to his Gospelist Christian faith, firing spiritual, eloquent statements in support of her husband.

Gbagbo met with Laurent in 1973, at a time when both were powerful figures in the union movement of Kot D’Ivory.

Gbagbo had diplomas in history and linguistics and as a teacher he was a key member of the unions of various teachers.

The couple’s relationship was also built on the fight against then President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

Gbagbos protested against Houphouët-Boigny’s auto-stocked, which lasted 33 years, calling for multi-party democracy.

As a result of their activism, the couple was closed several times.

“I was involved in a political fight against the former regime with the men,” Gbagbo recalled in his interview with L’E Express.

“I spent six months in prison, beaten, violent, left for dead. After all these trials, it is logical that people do not get involved with me.”

In 1982, the couple co -founded FPI. That same year, Laurent fled to France after harassing the security forces of Houphouët-Boigny and Gbagbo was left to raise only the couple’s daughters.

After six years, Laurent returned and the couple married an intimate ceremony, with less than 10 guests.

Gagbos soon had an additional reason for celebration. In 1990, Houphouët-Boigny finally failed, allowing the first national elections in Kot D’Ivoire after independence three decades earlier.

Laurent decided to run for president, his wife’s key figure in his campaign.

“Laurent had a well -intentioned Gab, Simone uncompromising discourse,” French newspaper Le Monde said about Gbagbos’s political partnership.

In less flattering, the Ivorian opposition newspaper Le Patriot writes: “Laurent Gbagbo – expansive, warm and disgusting … His wife Simone Ehvet -Gbagbo – mysterious, cold and secret.”

In elections observed by charges of widespread, Laurent lost the presidential race at Houphouët-Boigny from landslide.

However, he won a place in the National Assembly and five years later his wife also won.

Gbagbo again campaign for her husband when he runs out for president in 2000. This time he won after all other opposition candidates were excluded from the military leaders who had seized power.

But after being a democracy champion, the new president began to adopt Draconi measures to suffocate political disagreement. His support for the concept of ivoarite, or Ivodes, pushed soldiers to the north to deal with weapons and the country was divided into two.

His wife is believed to have had a huge impact on the security forces that were used by the administration to silence the opposition voices.

In addition, the 2005 presidential election was postponed six times, with Laurent stating that he had to establish control over the country before he could hold elections, although he eventually agreed with them in 2010.

In a surprising result, he lost to Alasan Owatara, the current President of Cotta D’IVire, but declined to accept the result. This attempt to stay caused another devastating civil war, in which more than 3,000 people were killed.

After the vote, Gbagbo fiercely defended her husband’s decision to remain by calling Ouattara the “bandit leader”.

“The time to debate about the election between Gbagbo and the” bandit leader “ended,” she said in an address to the supporters.

“Our president is firmly created in power and he works.”

In the end, as the pro-Owaratar forces supported by French troops advanced in the presidential residence, the couple found refuge in a bunker. They were arrested there and escaped at a hotel in Abidjan, the main city of Cott D’Ivoire, effectively with the termination of the five -month conflict.

During his ordeal five years later, Gbagbo described his detention at the hotel.

“I myself arrived with my butt, exposed to my nakedness. I was subjected to several attempts to rape daylight, everyone in the presence of French soldiers who filmed,” she told the court.

Gbagbo was sentenced to 20 years for “attempting to undermine state security”, disturbing public order and organizing armed bands during the Civil War.

However, only three years later, President Watara provided Gbagbo amnesty in what he said was a move to promote reconciliation. Therefore, she was allowed to stand in the election next month, despite her sentence.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) suffered separate charges against GBAGBO in 2012, also linked to the Civil War, but later they had dropped.

The MNS went after Laurent – they accused him of crimes against humanity and he spent seven years in arrest in The Hague.

The couple has long maintained their innocence, rejecting all accusations against them as politically motivated.

Laurent was eventually justified by the ICC and returned to Kot D’Ivoire’s home in 2021.

But a tear would not be gathered with his wife – days after the Ivorian soil landed, the former president filed for divorce, encouraging a relationship with the journalist Nadi Bamba.

Gbagbo returned to her husband – through her lawyer she accused Laurent of “screaming And the well -known infidelity “and” abandonment of the wedding home “.

The former first lady has since quietly and methodically restores her political base after breaking through FPI.

It founded a new party, the left movement of capable generations (MGC) and in its election campaign for the next month promises “upgraded” and “prosperous” banking shore.

The GBagbo candidacy is not only politically significant, but symbolically powerful in a country where women remain largely underneath to the national leadership.

Only 30% of Ivoria’s parliamentarians are women, and few have played higher roles in the government.

GBAGBO’s reputation for activism and democracy has been tainted, but it is still seen as one of Ouattara’s strongest competitors in the poll next month.

A political veteran with powerful rhetoric, she seems tuned to win the support of her husband’s supporters after he was banned from running.

But in these elections the spotlight will be firmly on Simone Gbagbo. And if she wins the Presidency, the Iron Lady will make history as Kot D’Ivoir’s first president of Coast D’Ivoire – another cornerstone in a stormy, four decades of long political career.

Additional reporting from Nikolai Dotse in Abidjan