He was 89.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr B\u00e9di\u00e9 took over as the country\u2019s second head of state after the death of Felix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But allegations of widespread corruption and an economic slump led to him being ousted in a military coup in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite being born into a relatively poor family, he excelled at school and was picked to study in France were he gained a doctorate in economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He attempted to return to power three years ago but was defeated by his long-time political rival President Alassane Ouattara.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cause of Mr B\u00e9di\u00e9\u2018a death is unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His death will be felt as a big loss for the whole country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite his rivalry with President Ouattara, he was mostly seen as a wise man who always cherished peace and an advocate for national unity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many Ivorians are paying tribute to him on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
He was 89. Mr B\u00e9di\u00e9 took over as the country\u2019s second head of state after the death of Felix Houphouet-Boigny in 1993. But allegations of widespread corruption and an economic slump led to him being ousted in a military coup in 1999. Despite being born into a relatively poor family, he excelled at school and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":36627,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[8588,1853,11264,1384,6731,7234,5241,5455,5575,5459,10399,5572,12653,5396,10917,3805,8459,6736,5349,11957,3954,594],"class_list":["post-36626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituary","tag-abidjan","tag-alassane-ouattara","tag-allegations","tag-corruption","tag-coup","tag-death","tag-died","tag-family","tag-france","tag-ivory-coast","tag-konami-bedie","tag-military","tag-military-coup","tag-peace","tag-poor","tag-president","tag-rivalry","tag-school","tag-social-media","tag-unity","tag-will","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36626"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36628,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36626\/revisions\/36628"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36626"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36626"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}