Félix Houphouët-Boigny

President of the Ivory Coast (1960-1993)

• Born: October 18, 1905
• Birthplace: Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast
• Died: December 7, 1993
• Place of death: Yamoussoukro, Ivory Coast

Through Houphouët-Boigny’s guidance and close ties with France, the Ivory Coast became one of the most economically and politically stable nations of Africa.

Early Life

Félix Houphouët-Boigny (fay-leeks hoo-fway bwah-nyee), often known as Le Vieux (“the old man”), was born in Yamoussoukro village. He was a member of the Akwe clan of the Baule ethnic group. His father and his uncle were cantonal chiefs, and he himself was named chief at the age of five, when his father died; his mother served as chief regent. He married a woman whose mother’s side descended from the Agni royalty of Ghana. Houphouët-Boigny attended primary school at Yamoussoukro village and at Bingeville school in Ivory Coast. The relative wealth and influence of his cocoa-planting family allowed him to be enrolled as a high school student at the École Normale William Ponty, on Gore Island, in Dakar, Senegal. From there he entered the Dakar École de Médecine, from which he received his African medical diploma in 1925. Thereafter, until 1940, he served as a doctor at several posts within the Ivory Coast. Although little has been written about his younger years, Houphouët-Boigny’s experience as a son of a wealthy farmer who faced many obstacles posed by colonialism discrimination, forced labor, and taxation without representation and the fact that he was one of the few highly educated Ivory Coast natives who understood the workings as well as the vulnerability of the French colonial system explain his rise to prominence in the colony and in the French metropolis itself. Houphouët-Boigny was so determined to play a role in the colonial system that he refused at first to become chief of the Akwe in 1932, offering the position to his younger brother (who died in 1939).

In December, 1940, Houphouët-Boigny could no longer decline his chiefly calling following the death of his uncle, chief of the Akwe: He assumed the position of chef de canton of his clan. Concerned about the plight of the farmers even before becoming chef de canton, Houphouët-Boigny began organizing the Abengorou African cocoa and coffee farmers in 1933. In 1940, he not only became chief but also inherited, as is traditional among the matrilineal Baule, a large tract of land following the death of his uncle. In his capacity as chief, the then-celebrated medical doctor organized the Association of Traditional Chiefs to prevent the erosion of African chiefly powers, prestige, and social status. “Short and stocky,” as one writer described his physical stature, Houphouët-Boigny availed himself of all opportunities that the French colonial system offered. Houphouët-Boigny never disguised his admiration for and love of French civilization and traditions, something his adversaries used against him, or neglected the people he chose to represent. As he entered the decade of the 1940’s, Houphouët-Boigny’s activities had already earned for him from the French the label of “radical,” while many Africans considered him to be either a conservative or a reactionary African politician on account of his ties to the French establishment and his love for France.

Life’s Work

During the 1944-1945 period, Houphouët-Boigny launched in earnest his career as a politician and statesman who would take very popular positions at home but quite often controversial ones in the metropolis and in colonial and independent Africa. In the end, however, he remained the winner on all fronts. In 1944, for example, he was elected president of the Syndicat Agricole Africain (SAA), an African trade union that he had founded. In this capacity, he demanded fair prices for the crops of the African farmers, treatment equal to that of their white counterparts in the colony, and exemption from forced labor for all cocoa and coffee planters. His effort paid off, as the price of African farm products rose dramatically.

In October, 1945, Houphouët-Boigny won a seat on the first French Constituent Assembly, a victory that took him to Paris. Subsequently, at a Bamako Conference of October, 1946, attended by more than eight hundred delegates from French-speaking Africa, Houphouët-Boigny inspired the establishment of the interterritorial Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA), of which he became the first president, represented in the Ivory Coast by the Parti Démocratique de la Côte d’Ivoire (PDCI), a political organization he had founded the previous year.

As a candidate of his party for the French National Assembly in 1946, Houphouët-Boigny won a landslide victory that propelled him deeper into French domestic and overseas politics for the next fourteen years. He subsequently accepted a position in the French cabinet from 1956 to 1958. From his new political “pulpit,” Houphouët-Boigny fought for his platform: the abolition of forced labor, an end of the indigénat, fair prices for African farmers, a measure of autonomy for the colonies, and African political participation. In spite of his Roman Catholic upbringing and his conservative views, Houphouët-Boigny did not hesitate to forge an alliance with the leftist blocs in France, particularly the French Communist Party. From his position as a minister in the cabinet and his influence as a member of the National Assembly, and using his diplomatic skills, Houphouët-Boigny won victory after victory on almost all fronts: Forced labor was abolished without debate in April, 1946 (by a law known as the Houphouët-Boigny Law); the infamous dual college was eliminated by the Loi-Cadre (Enabling Act) in 1956; and the Framework Law of 1957 gave the colonies a large measure of autonomy. These victories were extremely significant to the Africans. While the Loi-Cadre created and strengthened the power of territorial assemblies, created executive councils, instituted universal suffrage, and stressed the Africanization of the bureaucracy and economic development programs for each one of the colonies as well as for the region, the Framework Law ensured that French Africa would remain within the French Community but with complete autonomy. It promised increased French assistance, but it also noted that African colonies could opt to become separate independent states.

A nagging political problem, however, forced Houphouët-Boigny to repudiate some of his organized political support. His alliance with the communists, who had become a permanent opposition to the government, and the radically perceived activities of the PDCI in the colony brought about severe reprisals from the colonial state against outspoken PDCI leaders. The situation became so threatening to Houphouët-Boigny and to the very survival of his own party that, in 1950, he declared a split with the French Communist Party and instead allied himself with centrist elements in France and cooperated with the establishment in the Ivory Coast. Subsequently, he took complete control of the PDCI and embarked on a campaign for economic self-sufficiency for the Ivory Coast, even if this move meant a break with his fellow African leaders. Meanwhile, his political career was reaching new plateaus. In 1956, he was elected the first mayor of Abidjan and was appointed to serve as a minister in the French cabinet. In 1957, he was reelected to the French National Assembly. During the 1957-1958 period, he became president of the Grand Council of French West Africa (the “legislative” body of the artificial Federation of West Africa created by the French government) as well as president of the Territorial Assembly of the Ivory Coast. When the French government gave a choice to the colonies to become either independent states or republics within the French Community, in 1958, Houphouët-Boigny, by then Charles de Gaulle’s most trusted adviser on African affairs, convinced his people at home to remain within the community, fearing the economic consequences of a rupture with the French government and the mother country. As a necessary move, he resigned his position as minister of state in the French cabinet in Paris and became premier of the new Republic of the Ivory Coast on May 1, 1959.

Realizing, however, that by remaining within the French Community the potentially vast resources of his country would have to be shared with other members of the community and the poorer French West African Federation states such as Senegal and Mali, and sensitive to the criticism that he was willing to sacrifice the total independence of his people to safeguard his love and admiration for France and her culture, Houphouët-Boigny, to the dismay of the French, made an about-face and led his country to independence on August 7, 1960. In November of that year, without opposition, Houphouët-Boigny was elected president of the new republic.

As president, Houphouët-Boigny embarked on achieving four major objectives: assurance of continued financial and technical assistance from France; accelerated economic growth for his country as a national priority; assurance of a prominent role for his country and himself within the Francophone African states; and the creation of, at all cost, political “stability” at home. The attainment of the first objective would rely on close cooperation with France on the diplomatic, cultural, and economic fronts. The second would muster the country’s assets to achieve self-sufficiency in food production, to explore natural resources (timber, coffee, cocoa), to improve the country’s infrastructure and industry through the pursuit of liberal Western investments and to adopt a slow Africanization process within the bureaucracy. The last would be achieved through Houphouët-Boigny’s role as mediator and spokesperson of the new Francophone states, while becoming the promoter of the concept of loose federations such as the Conseil d’Entente, which had brought together, in 1959, several African nations in an effort somehow to coordinate foreign policy and defense and facilitate trade through a customs union and joint economic ventures. To this end, Houphouët-Boigny was instrumental in convening meetings of the twelve Francophone states, including Madagascar, at Abidjan and Brazzaville in 1960 and 1961 respectively. It was from these meetings that the establishment of the Organisation Africaine et Malgache de Coopération Économique and the Union Africaine et Malgache came about.

Houphouët-Boigny then tackled his fourth objective (political stability at home) by declaring his country a single-party state under the banner of the PDCI. As a consequence of this act, he did not hesitate to imprison or coopt his opponents, arguing that parties (except the PDCI), as manifested in the republic, would always be ethnically based and thus prove themselves detrimental to national unity. In 1963, for example, he claimed to have uncovered an attempted coup, which was followed by the arrest of nearly two hundred people, including cabinet ministers, all of whom were secretly tried at Yamoussoukro and given long jail sentences or sentenced to death. Three years later, Houphouët-Boigny lessened the penalties to be paid by those involved. He cushioned his continued mild repressive measures against his opponents by preventing the rise to prominence of any politician who could challenge his authority or be perceived as the most likely to succeed to the presidency.

A combination of an authoritarian regime, the cultivation of a fatherly image, and the Ivory Coast’s “economic miracle” guaranteed the unopposed and “overwhelming” reelection of the president in 1965, 1970, 1975, 1980, and 1985. In the 1965 reelection, he is reported to have captured 99.99 percent of the vote. In later years, however, the voluntary departures from power of Julius Nyerere, Ahmadou Ahidjo, and Léopold Senghor fueled speculation among the political experts that Houphouët-Boigny would soon follow their example.

Paradoxically, notwithstanding an active public life, details of Houphouët-Boigny’s private life remain sketchy at best. He is said to have had simultaneously at least three wives and to have fathered several children. His fortune was unknown, although in 1983 he admitted to having billions of francs in a Swiss bank as well as in Ivory Coast financial institutions. He owned property in France and in the country. He was harshly criticized for his extravagant lifestyle, particularly at his birthplace, Yamoussoukro, which was declared the country’s new capital by the National Assembly in March, 1983. The president was quick to point out to his critics that he was creating a place for people to live (there are 100,000 people in the new capital today) and initiating a history and a tradition for his young motherland. Overall, therefore, it seems that Houphouët-Boigny was almost impervious to criticism of his public or private life.

Nevertheless, he did agree to hold multiparty elections in 1990. He was re-elected to a seventh term and died in office in 1993.

Significance

The Ivory Coast has historically been one of the most economically developed countries in Africa. The rate of its economic growth was estimated at an average of 7 percent per year during the 1970’s. In spite of the fact that its natural resources, particularly mineral deposits, are not as abundant there as in other African countries (although oil has been discovered lately), the per capita income of the citizens is close to fifteen hundred dollars therefore much higher than that of most Sub-Saharan Africans. Abidjan has been called the Paris of Africa, while industrial growth has increased fourfold during the past thirty years. This indisputable economic development in the country has resulted from the vision and the determination of its leader, Houphouët-Boigny. Sarcastically, however, some analysts have called the Ivory Coast’s economic progress “growth without development” and have, instead, given all credit to France. Understandably, Houphouët-Boigny was harshly criticized for his close ties to France and labeled by “radicals” as “the French African puppet.” Houphouët-Boigny, however, ignored every criticism and continued to court French loans, French technicians, and French businessmen, while welcoming French citizens and Western entrepreneurs who wished to invest or live in the Ivory Coast. Although he maintained lukewarm relations with the communist world, Houphouët-Boigny preferred to deal with the West and coordinated most of the country’s foreign policy with France. As the dean (doyen) of the Francophone leaders, Houphouët-Boigny, the elder statesman, enjoyed great respect from his Francophone colleagues and other African statesmen, notwithstanding their honest disagreement about the best methods and strategies to improve Africa’s overall conditions.

Houphouët-Boigny’s behind-the-scenes diplomacy, his unending meetings (some secret) to resolve some of Africa’s most pressing problems, such as the Congo crisis of the 1960’s and the Angolan tragedy following independence, and the emphasis he put on resolving South Africa’s racial conflict peacefully demonstrated the extent of his involvement in international affairs and his determination to follow his own instincts, irrespective of resulting criticism. Thus, he did not hesitate to meet with South African leaders and to maintain trade relations with the apartheid regime. Evidently, his unpopular positions won for him praise in the West but only scorn from intellectuals in many African capitals and abroad. It is clear, nevertheless, that, although not a charismatic leader, Houphouët-Boigny remained a national hero for his country a person who led their country to independence and who gave it a prominent place on the world map.

Bibliography

Doudu, Cameron. “Who Wants to Burn Cote d’Ivoire?” New African 390 (November, 2000): 32. This report on the contemporary political problems in Cote d’Ivoire places the situation within the context of Houphouët-Boigny’s legacy.

Italiaander, Rolf. The New Leaders of Africa. Translated by James McGovern. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1961. Italiaander characterizes Houphouët-Boigny in this early and incomplete study of emerging African leaders as “a politician and statesman who talks a lot about democracy but, like many of the new leaders in Africa, a rather autocratic ruler.”

Jackson, Robert H., and Carl G. Rosberg. Personal Rule in Black Africa: Prince, Autocrat, Prophet, Tyrant. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Jackson and Rosberg demonstrate their excellent analytical skills in African politics and portray Houphouët-Boigny as an efficient autocrat able to deliver, without the use of political “brokers,” the “goods” that placate and co-opt his opponents and generate popular support.

Melady, Thomas P. Profiles of African Leaders. New York: Macmillan, 1961. In this critical biographical survey of the African leaders of the time, Melady takes a positive view of Houphouët-Boigny.

Mundt, Robert. Historical Dictionary of the Ivory Coast Côte d’Ivoire. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1987. This is an excellent and comprehensive survey of the Ivory Coast and provides an objective portrait of Houphouët-Boigny.

Ungar, Sanford. Africa: The People and Politics of an Emerging Continent. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. This volume deals with several African states and their leaders and is therefore a useful overview of the Ivory Coast.

Woronoff, Jon. West African Wager: Houphouët Versus Nkrumah. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1972. A comparative study of Ghana and the Ivory Coast and their two leaders. The author avoids taking sides but holds the view that, on balance, the “winner” was Houphouët-Boigny.

Zolberg, Aristide R. One-Party Government in the Ivory Coast. Rev. ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1969. An essential source on the politics of the Ivory Coast and the personal rule of Houphouët-Boigny.