He is among the candidates who had ambitions to run in the Ivorian presidential election in October 2020. Koulibaly Mamadou is the president of Freedom and Democracy for the Republic (LIDER), a progressive liberal opposition political party. It was established in July 2011, advocating for democracy and a market economy.
Born on April 21, 1957, in Azaguié-Gare, Koulibaly Mamadou is a Ivorian politician, economist, and academic. He taught at the University of Cocody in Côte d'Ivoire, the University of Versailles, and the University of Lille (France), before administering the research network on economic policies for CODESRIA in Dakar.
Appointed as Minister of Budget and later Economy and Finance in the transitional government in 2000, he successfully organized, using solely Ivorian funds, the constitutional referendum and presidential elections in October 2000, despite international sanctions following the December 1999 coup.
Reappointed as Minister of Economy and Finance in the first government of the Second Republic, of which he was the spokesperson, Prof. Mamadou Koulibaly was elected as a deputy for Koumassi (a district in Abidjan) in the December 2000 legislative elections. He subsequently became the President of the National Assembly of Côte d'Ivoire in January 2001, a position he held for 11 years.
After briefly serving as the interim president of the Ivorian Popular Front during the post-electoral crisis, he chose to establish his own party, Freedom and Democracy for the Republic.
Married and a father, since October 2012, he has resumed teaching courses in the history of economic thought, monetary economics, and macroeconomic policy at the universities of Cocody, Bouaké, and Daloa. He has several publications in economic and monetary matters, including the concept of the floating CFA franc against the French franc.
Mamadou Koulibaly was nominated by his party as the candidate for the October 2015 presidential election during the 2nd ordinary congress of LIDER on November 8, 2014. However, citing fraud in the organization of the election and biased treatment of candidates, he eventually withdrew from the race before the vote.
In January 2020, Mamadou Koulibaly and around fifty intellectuals published a statement calling for a "popular and inclusive" debate on the ongoing reform of the CFA franc and emphasizing that the currency issue is fundamentally political, with the answer not being primarily technical.
He ran as a candidate in the presidential election scheduled for October. On Monday, August 31, 2020, the founder of Freedom and Democracy for the Republic (LIDER), Mamadou Koulibaly, submitted the necessary documents for his candidacy in the October 2020 presidential election.
However, on September 14, 2020, Mamadou Koulibaly's candidacy for the 2020 presidential election was rejected by the Ivorian Constitutional Council. According to the Council, the president of LIDER did not have the required number of endorsements to participate in the presidential election on October 31, 2020.