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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Ivory Coast
Index
The question of who would succeed Houphouët-Boigny
became the
significant political issue by the beginning of the 1980s.
Many
political observers believed that if Houphouët-Boigny did
choose a
successor, internecine feuds would erupt within the PDCI.
They also
believed that, at least initially, no one could combine
HouphouëtBoigny 's prestige, charisma, and experience with the
political
acumen that he had exercised over Ivoirian politics for
almost
thirty years.
In 1980 a constitutional amendment created the office
of vicepresident , who was to succeed to the presidency in the
event of a
midterm vacancy and who would be chosen by and elected at
the same
time as the president. The next elections, however, were
not
scheduled until 1985, and Houphouët-Boigny had given no
indication
of his plans for a vice-presidential running mate. (In
1985
Houphouët-Boigny resolved the problem by amending the
constitution,
eliminating the position of vice-president.)
In the 1970s, Philippe Yacé, the president of the
National
Assembly and PDCI secretary general, seemed to be the most
likely
successor. In 1975 the National Assembly adopted a law
stipulating
that power would pass to the president of the assembly,
confirming
Yacé as the second most powerful man in the country.
Nevertheless,
Yacé, who was popular with party officials, had many
enemies,
mostly because of his role as chief accuser in the
fabricated 1963
plot.
In 1980 the prospects for designating a presidential
successor
were even more obscured when Houphouët-Boigny abolished
the post of
PDCI secretary general held by Yacé, who had fallen into
disfavor
with the president because he was thought guilty of pride.
Shortly
thereafter, Yacé was also stripped of his position as
president of
the National Assembly.
By the early 1980s, the list of possible successors
included
members of the old guard in the top echelons of the party
as well
as technocrats--middle-aged, university-educated
Ivoirians--who
filled executive positions in the administrative
bureaucracy and
the economy. Among the old guard who enjoyed great support
inside
the PDCI were Minister of State Mathieu Ekra; Senior
Minister of
State Auguste Denise; and president of the Economic and
Social
Council Mamadou Coulibaly. The most likely candidate,
however, was
Henri Konan Bedié, a Baoulé, a technocrat, and the new
National
Assembly president. According to Article 11, amended, of
the
Constitution, the president of the National Assembly takes
over the
office of the president of the republic should the latter
die or
become incapacitated. The provisional president can then
run for a
full term in elections, which are to take place within
sixty days.
As provisional president, Bedié would have an edge over
possible
rivals. Moreover, demographic trends favored Bedié, who as
a second
generation politician enjoyed growing support from younger
and
middle-aged Iviorians who believed perhaps that Yacé, a
first
generation figure, was now too old. A third group of
political
rivals was a younger generation of politicians, most in
their
thirties, who were known for their effectiveness in the
economic
sphere and favored closer ties with the United States and
the
Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany).
In the mid-1980s, political infighting threatened to
spill over
boundaries of the narrow circle of the party leadership,
however.
That Houphouët-Boigny continued to resist naming a
successor proved
disconcerting to all those in positions of power, as well
as to the
West and especially to France, which had extensive
investments in
Côte d'Ivoire.
Data as of November 1988
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