President Alassane Ouattara of Cote d’Ivoire has declared amnesty for Simone Gbagbo, wife of the country’s former leader who was convicted of offences against the state during a brief civil war 2011.

In a state address which was broadcast live on Ivorian television on Monday, President Quattara said Simone Gbagbo was one of 800 citizens that he had pardoned.

Simone had been tried and convicted in 2015 and sentenced to 20 years in prison. In 2017, an Abidjan court acquitted her of crimes against humanity and war crimes linked to her role in the 2011 civil war that killed about 3,000 people.

“Because of my commitment to peace and true reconciliation, I proceeded to sign this day an amnesty order, which will benefit 800 of our citizens,” Ouattara said in the address.

Cote d’Ivoire is Francophone West Africa’s largest, most successful and diverse economy but its inflammable politics, charged by ongoing ethnic and land disputes  makes the election scheduled for 2020 potentially perilous.

Besides Simone Gbagbo, another beneficiary of Quattara’s kindness was Kamagate Souleymane, a former rebel when Laurent Gbagbo was in power and a close ally of the country’s National Assembly leader, Guillaume Soro.

Soro’s rebel movement claims credit for helping Ouattara come to power after Gbagbo refused to accept defeat in a presidential election, triggering the short but brutal 2011 civil war for which Laurent Gbagbo is currently on trial at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

As political tension heast up ahead of the country’s elections in 2020, Ouattara’s ruling RDR coalition has fallen out with the coalition’s junior partner, the PDCI, whose leader expelled party members who were named in Quattara’s new cabinet in July.

There have also been doubts over whether Ouattara will step down after two terms as required by the constitution, although in his address he repeated a remark made in July that he would work to transfer power to a new generation.