Côte d'Ivoire

Country in West Africa, bounded north by Mali and Burkina Faso, east by Ghana, south by the Gulf of Guinea, and west by Liberia and Guinea.

Government

The 1960 constitution, as amended, provides for a presidential political system. The president is directly elected by universal suffrage for a five-year term and selects and directs the cabinet and prime minister. There is a single-chamber legislature, the national assembly of 225 members, also popularly elected and serving a five-year term. Until 1990, the only political party was the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI), but a multiparty system now operates.

History

The area now known as the Côte d'Ivoire was once made up of several indigenous kingdoms. From the 16th century the Portuguese, French, and British established trading centres along the coast, dealing in slaves and ivory. During the 19th century France acquired the region by means of treaties with local leaders, eventually incorporating it into French West Africa in 1904. Export-orientated cocoa, coffee, and banana plantations were established by French settlers and worked by forced labour. It was given self-government within the French Community in 1958.

Independence as a one-party state

The country achieved full independence in 1960, when a new constitution was adopted. The country's first president was Félix Houphouët-Boigny. He had formed the country's first agricultural trade union, for cocoa farmers, in 1944 and had been elected to the French Parliament. On independence, Côte d'Ivoire was the most prosperous part of French West Africa. Houphouët-Boigny decided to maintain close links with France, and this support, combined with a good economic growth rate, gave his country a high degree of political stability. He was criticized by some other African leaders for maintaining links with South Africa but defended this policy by arguing that a dialogue between blacks and whites was essential. He denounced communist intervention in African affairs and travelled extensively to improve relations with Western powers.

The move to multiparty politics

Houphouët-Boigny ruled with a firm paternalist hand, with only one political party, the PDCI, allowed and the press tightly controlled. However, in the early 1980s world recession and drought undermined the economy and the country's foreign debt increased. This provoked rising crime and industrial, civil, and political unrest, including protests against government corruption. This forced the government to adopt a multiparty constitution in 1990. Houphouët-Boigny and the PDCI won the first multiparty elections in 1990, but there were allegations from the opposition of ballot-rigging and political pressurizing.

On Houphouët-Boigny's death, in December 1993, the parliamentary speaker, Henri Konan Bedie, took over as president. He subsequently won a clear majority in the October 1995 presidential election, but the third of the population who were foreign-born (mainly in Burkina Faso) were not allowed to vote and leaders of the two main opposition parties were banned from standing.

1999 military coup and 2000 presidential election

While Houphouët-Boigny had allowed access to government posts to all ethnic groups, Konan Bedie provoked ethnic tensions by emphasizing Ivorian nationalism. He also excluded opponents from the army. This provoked a bloodless military coup over Christmas 1999, led by General Robert Guei, whom Bedie had removed from the army in 1995. Bedie was ousted and fled to France. The public appeared to support the coup because the Bedie regime had become tarnished with corruption. Guei allowed the return from exile of the former prime minister Alassane Ouattara, who had strong support in the Muslim north of the country and had been persecuted by the Bedie government. Guei also announced, in January 2000, that the country would suspend the repayment of foreign debts until further notice.

The new constitution, adopted in July 2000, proved controversial because it included a clause preventing citizens with a foreign parent from standing for president. This meant that Ouattara would not be able to contest the presidency. Guei put himself forward as a candidate, but this divided the army and his efforts to rig the election led to popular protest, claiming 180 lives. He was forced to flee after attempting to cancel the counting of votes and declare himself winner. His main opponent, Laurent Gbagbo, who received 59% of the vote, won the election and rejected opposition calls for the holding of a new election. Further street violence, claiming 14 lives, accompanied the national assembly elections, held in December 2000. In January 2001, the government foiled an armed coup by rebel soldiers, which Gbagbo claimed was organized by Ouattara.

Civil war from 2002

In September 2002, disaffected troops, drawn originally from the north the country, mutinied and launched attacks on cities, including Abidjan. They soon established control over the north of the country, starting a civil war. In January 2003, President Gbagdo and rebel leaders signed accords to create a government of national unity, but this remained unstable and the north remained outside government control. UN peacekeepers were deployed and France, South Africa, and the African Union worked to promote peace, but with limited success. By 2006, the continuing civil war and divisions had wreaked havoc on the once prosperous economy.

Côte d'Ivoire (redirected from Windward Coast)