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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Ivory Coast
Index
The worldwide economic recession at the beginning of
the 1980s
caused the prices of cocoa and coffee, Côte d'Ivoire's
principal
exports, to drop sharply, resulting in a significant
economic
slowdown. Combined with soaring commercial interest rates,
the
recession abruptly truncated the growth of the Ivoirian
economy and
exacerbated tensions in the labor force, where
underemployment and
unemployment had become acute. In mid-1978 complaints
about
inflation, the public debt, decreasing exports, the role
of
foreigners in the economy, and the succession question
appeared in
antigovernment tracts distributed in Abidjan. Popular
manifestations of discontent with the regime's rigid
policies, as
well as with declining revenue, high urban unemployment,
and the
atrophied one-party political system, continued into the
early
1980s. As was by now typical, Houphouët-Boigny dealt
quickly with
the complaints by proposing more rapid Ivoirianization and
steps to
decentralize and democratize local administrations. The
government
also trimmed the budget of several development programs.
Perhaps foreseeing political problems, Houphouët-Boigny
took
steps to consolidate further his own control. In 1980,
again
running unopposed, he was elected to a fifth term in
office. In the
same year, the Seventh Party Congress of the PDCI,
following
instructions from the president, abolished the post of
PDCI
secretary general and established Houphouët-Boigny as the
party's
executive chairman, assisted by the new nine-member
Executive
Committee of the Political Bureau.
Data as of November 1988
Growing Economic Problems
The worldwide economic recession at the beginning of
the 1980s
caused the prices of cocoa and coffee, Côte d'Ivoire's
principal
exports, to drop sharply, resulting in a significant
economic
slowdown. Combined with soaring commercial interest rates,
the
recession abruptly truncated the growth of the Ivoirian
economy and
exacerbated tensions in the labor force, where
underemployment and
unemployment had become acute. In mid-1978 complaints
about
inflation, the public debt, decreasing exports, the role
of
foreigners in the economy, and the succession question
appeared in
antigovernment tracts distributed in Abidjan. Popular
manifestations of discontent with the regime's rigid
policies, as
well as with declining revenue, high urban unemployment,
and the
atrophied one-party political system, continued into the
early
1980s. As was by now typical, Houphouët-Boigny dealt
quickly with
the complaints by proposing more rapid Ivoirianization and
steps to
decentralize and democratize local administrations. The
government
also trimmed the budget of several development programs.
Perhaps foreseeing political problems, Houphouët-Boigny
took
steps to consolidate further his own control. In 1980,
again
running unopposed, he was elected to a fifth term in
office. In the
same year, the Seventh Party Congress of the PDCI,
following
instructions from the president, abolished the post of
PDCI
secretary general and established Houphouët-Boigny as the
party's
executive chairman, assisted by the new nine-member
Executive
Committee of the Political Bureau.
Data as of November 1988
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