The former CEO of Credit Suisse, T. Thiam, was on Friday elected leader of the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI), one of the country's main opposition parties, making him a likely candidate for the 2025 presidential elections.

61-year-old Thiam received the votes of more than 90% of the 7,000 assembled PDCI members.

The executive was part of the government of former President Henry Konan Bedie in the 1990s, before leaving the country almost 25 years ago when Bedie was overthrown in a coup d'état, recalls the Reuters.

Since then, he has worked for the consulting firm McKinsey, the insurance companies Aviva and Prudential and as CEO of Credit Suisse. He left the Swiss bank in 2020, following a major espionage scandal in which he denied any involvement.

The PDCI governed Côte d'Ivoire from independence until the early 2000s. The party's former leader, Bedie, died in August at the age of 89.