Is Ivory Coast's red card politics an own goal for democracy after Tidjane Thiam's ban

Why ex-bank boss Tidjane Thiam has been barred from seeking the Ivorian presidency - and the potential fallout.

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That is the painful lesson Tidjane Thiam is learning as he waits to see whether deal-making in the corridors of power and popular pressure from the street can rescue his bid to become president of Ivory Coast.

Seemingly relentless progress towards the election set for this October came to a juddering halt on 22 April when a judge ruled that the 62-year-old had lost his Ivorian citizenship by taking French nationality decades previously and not revoking it until too late to qualify for this year's vote.

Moving back to Ivory Coast in 2022 after more than two decades in global finance, Thiam had immediately been seen as a potential contender to succeed current head of state Alassane Ouattara who, at 83, is now in the final year of his third term of office.

A scion of a traditional noble family and a great nephew of the country's revered founding President, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, he had impressed as a top government official and minister in the 1990s, overseeing infrastructure development and radical economic reforms.