الحسن واتارا
Before the 1995 and the 2000 elections, a law drafted by the president Henri Konan Bédié and upheld by the Supreme Court required both parents of a presidential candidate to be born within Côte d'Ivoire. This led to the disqualification of the northern presidential candidate Alassane Ouattara, who claimed to represent the predominantly Muslim north, often poor immigrant workers from Mali and Burkina Faso working on coffee and cocoa plantations. Alassane Ouattara, an economist who worked for the IMF, was the Prime Minister of Côte d'Ivoire under the President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.