Early years and second marriage , 1962 Houphouët-Boigny officially became the head of the government of Ivory Coast on 1 May 1959. Although he faced no opposition from rival parties and the PDCI became the
de facto party of the state in 1957, he was confronted by opposition from his own government. Houphouët-Boigny began drafting a new constitution for Ivory Coast after the country's independence from France on 7 August 1960. It drew heavily from the
United States Constitution in establishing a powerful
executive branch, and from the
Constitution of France, which limited the capacities of the legislature. He transformed the National Assembly into a mere recording house for bills and budget proposals. On 27 November 1960, Houphouët-Boigny was elected unopposed to the
Presidency of the Republic, while a single list of PDCI candidates was elected to the National Assembly. For the next 27 years, almost all power in Ivory Coast was centered in Houphouët-Boigny. From 1965 to 1985, he was reelected unopposed to five successive five-year terms. Also every five years, a single list of PDCI candidates was returned to the National Assembly. For all intents and purposes, all of them were appointed by the president, since in his capacity as leader of the PDCI he approved all candidates. For this reason, all adult citizens were required to be members of the PDCI. The media were tightly controlled, and served mainly as outlets for government propaganda. Under his "unique brand of paternalistic authoritarianism", Houphouët-Boigny subdued dissent by offering government positions instead of incarceration to his critics. While Houphouët-Boigny's Ivory Coast lacked political democracy in the Western sense, it was somewhat more tolerant and open than became the case in post-colonial Africa. Defence was entrusted to the French armed forces that, pursuant to the treaty on defence cooperation of 24 April 1961, were stationed at
Port-Bouët and could intervene at Houphouët-Boigny's request or when they considered French interests to be threatened. They subsequently intervened during attempts by the Sanwi monarchists to secede in 1959 and 1969, and again in 1970, when an unauthorised political group, the Eburnian Movement, was formed and Houphouët-Boigny accused its leader Kragbé Gnagbé of wishing to secede. with
John F. Kennedy and
Jackie Kennedy in 1962 Houphouët-Boigny married the much younger
Marie-Thérèse Brou in 1952, having also divorced his first wife of twenty-two years earlier in 1952. The couple had no children of their own, The marriage was not without scandal. In 1958, Marie-Thérèse went on a romantic escapade in Italy, while in 1961, Houphouët-Boigny fathered a child Florence (d. 2007) out of wedlock by his mistress Henriette Duvignac.
Leadership in Africa Following the example of de Gaulle, who refused proposals for an integrated Europe, Houphouët-Boigny opposed Nkrumah's proposed
United States of Africa, which called into question Ivory Coast's recently acquired national sovereignty. However, Houphouët-Boigny was not opposed to collective African institutions if they were subject to his influence or control. On 29 May 1959, in cooperation with
Hamani Diori (
Niger),
Maurice Yaméogo (
Upper Volta) and
Hubert Maga (
Dahomey), Houphouët-Boigny created the ''
Conseil de l'Entente (Council of Accord or Council of Understanding''). This regional organisation, founded in order to hamper the Mali Federation, was designed with three major functions: to allow shared management of certain public services, such as the port of Abidjan or the Abidjan–Niger railway line; to provide a solidarity fund accessible to member countries, 90% of which was provided by Ivory Coast; In 1966, Houphouët-Boigny even offered to grant
dual citizenship to nationals from member countries of the Conseil de l'Entente, but the proposition was quickly abandoned following popular protests. in 1973 The ambitious Ivorian leader had even greater plans for French-speaking Africa: he intended to rally the different nations behind a large organisation whose objective was the mutual assistance of its member states. The project became a reality on 7 September 1961 with the signing of a
charter giving birth to the
Union africaine et malgache (UAM;
African and Malagasy Union), comprising 12 French-speaking countries including
Léopold Sédar Senghor's Senegal. Agreements were signed in various sectors, such as economic, military and telecommunications, which strengthened solidarity among Francophone states. However, the creation of the
Organisation of African Unity (OAU) in May 1963 affected his plans: the supporters of
Pan-Africanism demanded the dissolution of all regional groupings, such as the UAM. Houphouët-Boigny reluctantly ceded, and transformed the UAM into the
Organisation africaine et malgache de coopération économique et culturelle (
African and Malagasy Organization of economic and cultural cooperation). Considering the OAU a dead end organisation, particularly since Paris was opposed to the group, Houphouët-Boigny decided to create in 1965 ''l'Organisation commune africaine et malgache
(OCAM; African and Malagasy Organization''), a French organization in competition with the OAU. The organisation included among its members 16 countries, whose aim was to break revolutionary ambitions in Africa. However, over the years, the organisation became too subservient to France, resulting in the departure of half of the countries. In the mid-1970s, during times of economic prosperity, Houphouët-Boigny and Senghor put aside their differences and joined forces to thwart Nigeria, which, in an attempt to establish itself in West Africa, had created the
Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The two countered the ECOWAS by creating the Economic Community of West Africa (ECWA), which superseded the old trade partnerships in the French-speaking regions. However, after assurances from Nigeria that ECOWAS would function in the same manner as the earlier Francophone organisations, Houphouët-Boigny and Senghor decided to merge their organization into ECOWAS in May 1975.
Françafrique Throughout his presidency, Houphouët-Boigny surrounded himself with French advisers, such as Guy Nairay, chief of staff from 1960 to 1993, and Alain Belkiri, Secretary-General of the Ivorian government, whose influence extended to all areas. This type of diplomacy, which he labelled "
Françafrique", allowed him to maintain very close ties with the former colonial power, making Ivory Coast France's primary African ally. Whenever one country would enter an agreement with an African nation, the other would unconditionally give its support. Through this arrangement, Houphouët-Boigny built a close friendship with
Jacques Foccart, the chief adviser on African policy in the
de Gaulle and
Pompidou governments. Tensions between Houphouët-Boigny and Touré also began to rise due to the conspiracies of the French intelligence agency
SDECE against the Sékou Touré regime. In January 1960, Houphouët-Boigny delivered
small arms to former rebels in
Man, Ivory Coast and incited his council in 1965 to agree to taking part in an attempt to overthrow Sékou Touré. In 1967, he promoted the creation of the
Front national de libération de la Guinée (FNLG;
National Front for the Liberation of Guinea), a reserve of men ready to plot the downfall of Sékou Touré. Houphouët-Boigny's relationship with
Kwame Nkrumah, the leader of neighboring
Ghana, degraded considerably following Guinea's independence, due to Nkrumah's financial and political support for Sékou Touré. After Sékou Touré convinced Nkrumah to support the secessionist Sanwi in Ivory Coast, Houphouët-Boigny began a campaign to discredit the Ghanaian regime. Also in collaboration with Foccart, Houphouët-Boigny took part in the attempted coup of 16 January 1977 led by famed French mercenary
Bob Denard against the revolutionary regime of
Mathieu Kérékou in
Dahomey. Houphouët-Boigny, to fight against the
Marxists in power in
Angola, also lent his support to
Jonas Savimbi's
UNITA party, whose feud with the
MPLA party led to the
Angolan Civil War. Despite his reputation as a destabiliser of regimes, Houphouët-Boigny granted refuge to
Jean-Bédel Bokassa, after the exiled
Central African Republic dictator had been overthrown by French
paratroopers in September 1979. This move was met with international criticism, and thus, having become a political and financial burden to Houphouët-Boigny, Bokassa was expelled from Côte d'Ivoire in 1983. The Ivorian leader supported President
Joseph Kasa-Vubu, an opponent of Lumumba, and followed France in supporting the controversial Congolese Prime Minister
Moise Tshombe. Tshombe, disliked by much of Africa, was passionately defended by Houphouët-Boigny and was even invited into OCAM in May 1965. Houphouët-Boigny was also a major contributor to the political tensions in
Biafra. Considering Nigeria a potential danger to French-influenced African states, Foccart sent Houphouët-Boigny and Lieutenant-Colonel Raymond Bichelot on a mission in 1963 to monitor political developments in the country. The opportunity to weaken the former British colony presented itself in May 1967, when Biafra, led by Lieutenant-Colonel
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, undertook to
secede from Nigeria. French-aligned African countries supported the secessionists who, provided with mercenaries and weapons by Jean Mauricheau-Beaupré, fought a
civil war with the Nigerian government. By the end of the 1960s, French-supported nations suddenly and openly distanced themselves from France and Ivory Coast's position on the civil war. At the request of Paris, Houphouet-Boigny began forging relations with South Africa in October 1970, justifying his attitude by stating that "[t]he problems of racial discrimination, so painful, so distressing, so revolting to our dignity of Negros, must not be resolved, we believe, by force." He even proposed to the OAU in June 1971 that they follow his lead. In spite of receiving some support, his proposal was rejected. This refusal did not, however, prevent him from continuing his attempts to approach the
Pretoria regime. His attempts bore fruit in October of that year, when a semi-official meeting between a delegation of high level Ivorian officials and South African prime minister
B. J. Vorster was held in the capital of South Africa. Moreover, mindful of the Communist influence in Africa, he met Vorster in
Geneva in 1977, after the Soviet Union and
Cuba tried to collectively spread their influence in
Angola and
Ethiopia. Houphouët-Boigny and
Thomas Sankara, the leader of
Burkina Faso, had a highly turbulent relationship. Tensions reached their climax in 1985 when Ivory Coast Burkinabés accused authorities of being involved in a conspiracy to forcibly recruit young students to training camps in
Libya. Houphouët-Boigny responded by inviting the dissident Jean-Claude Kamboulé to take refuge in Côte d'Ivoire so that he could organise opposition to the Sankara regime. In 1987, Sankara was overthrown and assassinated in a coup. The coup may have had French involvement, since the Sankara regime had fallen into disfavour in France. Houphouët-Boigny was also suspected of involvement in the coup and in November, the PDCI asked the government to ban the sale of
Jeune Afrique following its allegations of Houphouët-Boigny's participation. The Ivorian president would have greatly benefited from the divisions in the Burkina Faso government. He contacted
Blaise Compaoré, the second-most powerful man in the regime; it is generally believed that they worked in conjunction with Laurent Dona Fologo, Robert Guéï and Pierre Ouédraogo to overthrow the Sankara regime. Besides supporting policies pursued by France, Houphouët-Boigny also influenced their actions in Africa. He pushed France to support and provide arms to warlord
Charles Taylor's rebels during the
First Liberian Civil War in hopes of receiving some of the country's assets and resources after the war.
Opposition to the Soviet Union and China in 1977 From the time of Ivory Coast's independence, Houphouët-Boigny considered the Soviet Union and China "malevolent" influences on developing countries. He did not establish diplomatic relations with Moscow until 1967 and then severed them in 1969 following allegations of direct Soviet support to a 1968 student protest at the National University of Côte d'Ivoire. The two countries did not restore ties until February 1986, by which time Houphouët-Boigny had embraced a more active foreign policy reflecting his quest for greater international recognition.
Economic policies in the 1960s and 1970s Houphouët-Boigny adopted a system of
economic liberalism in Ivory Coast to obtain the trust and confidence of foreign investors, most notably the French. The advantages granted by the investment laws he established in 1959 allowed foreign business to repatriate up to 90% of their profits in their country of origin (the remaining 10% was reinvested in Côte d'Ivoire). He also developed an agenda for modernising the country's infrastructure, for example, building an American-style business district in Abidjan where five-star hotels and resorts welcomed tourists and businessmen. Ivory Coast experienced economic growth of 11–12% from 1960 to 1965. The origin of this economic success stemmed from the president's decision to focus on the
primary sector of the economy, rather than the
secondary sector. As a result of this economic prosperity, Ivory Coast saw an influx of immigrants from other West African countries; the foreign workforce—mostly Burkinabés—who maintained indigenous plantations, represented over a quarter of the Ivorian population by 1980. Both Ivorians and foreigners began referring to Houphouët-Boigny as the "Sage of Africa" for performing what became known as "Ivorian miracle". He was also respectfully nicknamed "The Old One" (
Le Vieux). The decline was perceived as fleeting, since its impact on planters was buffered by the Caistab, the agricultural marketing board, which ensured them a livable income. The next year, in order to contain a sudden drop in the prices of exported goods, Houphouët-Boigny raised prices to resist international
tariffs on raw materials. However, by applying only this solution, Ivory Coast lost more than 700 billion CFA francs between 1980 and 1982. From 1983 to 1984, Côte d'Ivoire fell victim to a drought that ravaged nearly 400,000 hectares of forest and 250,000 hectares of coffee and cocoa plants. To address this problem, Houphouët-Boigny travelled to London to negotiate an agreement on coffee and cocoa prices with traders and industrialists; by 1984, the agreement had fallen apart and Ivory Coast was engulfed in a major financial crisis. His easygoing authoritarian regime, where political prisoners were almost nonexistent, was well accepted by the population. However, the economic crisis that began in the 1980s caused a sharp decline in living conditions for the middle class and underprivileged urban populations. According to the
World Bank, the population living below the
poverty threshold went from 11% in 1985 to 31% by 1993. Despite the implementation of certain measures, such as the reduction of the number of young French workers (who worked abroad while serving in the military) from 3,000 to 2,000 in 1986, allowing many jobs to go to young Ivorian graduates, the government failed to control the rising rates of unemployment and bankruptcy in many companies. Strong social agitations shook the country, creating insecurity.
Opposition Laurent Gbagbo gained recognition as one of the principal instigators of the student demonstrations during the protests against Houphouët-Boigny's government on 9 February 1982, which led to the closing of the universities and other educational institutions. Shortly thereafter, his wife and he formed what would become the
Ivorian Popular Front (FPI). Gbagbo went into exile in France later that year, where he promoted the FPI and its political platforms. Although the FPI was ideologically similar to the
Unified Socialist Party, the French socialist government tried to ignore Gbagbo's party to please Houphouët-Boigny. After a lengthy appeal process, Gbagbo obtained status as a political refugee in France in 1985. However, the French government attempted to pressure him into returning to Ivory Coast, as Houphouët-Boigny had begun to worry about Gbagbo's developing a network of contacts, and believed "his stirring opponent would be less of a threat in Abidjan than in Paris". In 1988, Gbagbo returned from exile to Ivory Coast after Houphouët-Boigny implicitly granted him forgiveness by declaring that "the tree did not get angry at the bird". In 1990, Houphouët-Boigny legalised opposition parties. On 28 October
a presidential election was held. Gbagbo filed to run against Houphouët-Boigny, resulting in the country's first contested election. Gbagbo highlighted the President's age, suggesting that the 85-year-old president would not survive a seventh five-year term. Houphouët-Boigny countered by broadcasting television footage of his youth. According to official figures, he defeated Gbagbo with 2,445,365 votes to 548,441—an implausible 81.7 percent of the vote.
Displays of wealth During his presidency, Houphouët-Boigny benefited greatly from the wealth of Ivory Coast; by the time of his death in 1993, his personal wealth was estimated to be between US$7 and $11 billion. With regards to his large fortune, Houphouët-Boigny said in 1983, "People are surprised that I like gold. It's just that I was born in it." Personally financed by Houphouët-Boigny, Due to a collapse of the national economy coupled with lavish amounts spent on its construction, the Basilica was criticized: it was called "the basilica in the bush" by several western news agencies. ==Death and legacy==