Félix Houphouët-Boigny

Chef de canton and union leader

By becoming chef de canton, Houphouët assumed responsibility for the administration of Akouè, a canton which comprised 36 villages. He also took charge of the family plantation—at the time one of the most important in the country—and worked to diversify its rubber, cocoa and coffee crops. He soon became one of Africa's richest farmers. On 3 September 1944, he established, in cooperation with the colonial administration, the African Agricultural Union (Syndicat agricole africain, SAA). Under his presidency, the SAA brought together African farmers who were dissatisfied with their working conditions and worked to protect their interests against those of European planters. Anti-colonialist and anti-racist, the organisation demanded better working conditions, higher wages, and the abolition of the forced labour. The union quickly received the support of nearly 20,000 plantation workers, together with that of the left-wing French administrators placed in office by the Provisional Government. Its success irritated colonists to the extent that they took legal action against Houphouët, accusing him of being anti-French for never seeking French citizenship. However, Houphouët befriended the Inspector Minister of the Colonies, who ordered the charges dropped. They were more successful in obtaining the replacement of the sympathetic Governor André Latrille with the hostile Governor Henry de Mauduit.

Houphouët entered electoral politics in August 1945, when elections for the Abidjan city council were held for the first time. The French electoral rules established a common roll: half of the elected would have to be French citizens (who were mostly Europeans) and the other half non-citizens. Houphouët reacted by creating a multi-ethnic all-African roll with both non-citizens and citizens (mostly Senegalese with French citizenship). As a result, most of the African contenders withdrew and a large number of the French protested by abstaining, thus assuring a decisive victory for his African Bloc.

In October 1945, Houphouët moved onto the national political scene; the French government decided to represent its colonies in the assemblée constituante (Constituent Assembly) and gave Côte d'Ivoire and Upper Volta two representatives in Parliament combined. One of these would represent the French citizens and another would represent the indigenous population, but the suffrage was limited to less than 1% of the population. In an attempt to block Houphouët, the governor de Mauduit supported a rival candidature, Tenga Ouedraogo, and provided him the full backing of the administration. Despite that and thanks to the SAA's strong organization, Houphouët, running for the indigenous seat, easily came first with a 1,000-vote margin. He failed, however, to obtain a majority, due to the large number of candidates running. Houphouët emerged victorious again in the second round of elections held on 4 November 1945, in which he narrowly defeated an Upper Voltan candidate with 12,980 votes out of a total of 31,081. At this point, he decided to add "Boigny" to his surname, meaning "irresistible force" in Baoulé and symbolizing his role as a leader.

Early years and second marriage

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. Radical nationalists, led by Jean-Baptiste Mockey, openly opposed the government's Francophile policies. In an attempt to solve this problem, Houphouët-Boigny decided to exile Mockey in September 1959, claiming that Mockey had attempted to assassinate him using voodoo in what Houphouët-Boigny called the "complot du chat noir" (black cat conspiracy).

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.

1963 was marked by a series of alleged plots that played a decisive role in ultimately consolidating power in the hands of Houphouët-Boigny. There is no clear consensus on the unfolding of the 1963 events; in fact, there may have been no plot at all and the entire series of events may have been part of a plan by Houphouët-Boigny to consolidate his hold on power. Between 120 and 200 secret trials were held in Yamoussoukro, in which key political figures—including Mockey and the president of the Supreme Court Ernest Boka—were implicated. There was discontent in the army, as the generals grew restive following the arrest of Defense Minister Jean Konan Banny, and the president had to intervene personally to pacify them.

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. He and the PDCI believed that national unity and support for the PDCI were one and the same, and that a multiparty system would waste resources and harm the country's unity. 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.

While Houphouët-Boigny's regime was authoritarian, it was much milder than had already became the norm for African regimes of the time. Once he had consolidated his power, he freed political prisoners in 1967. Under his "unique brand of paternalistic authoritarianism", Houphouët-Boigny subdued dissent by offering government positions instead of incarceration to his critics. As a result, according to Robert Mundt, author of Côte d'Ivoire: Continuity and Change in a Semi-Democracy, he was never seriously challenged after 1963. 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.

In order to foil any plans for a coup d'état, the president took control of the military and police, reducing their numbers from 5,300 to 3,500. 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.

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, but adopted Abla Pokou, daughter of Akissi Anougble and granddaughter of the Bouale king Nanan Kouakou Anougble II, as Hélène Houphouët-Boigny in 1960.

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.

Rehabilitation and entry into government

In the 1951 elections, the number of seats was reduced from three to two; while Houphouët-Boigny still won a seat, the other RDA candidate, Ouezzin Coulibaly, did not. All in all, the RDA only garnered 67,200 of 109,759 votes in that election, and the party in direct opposition to it captured a seat. On 8 August 1951, Boigny, speaking at René Pleven's inauguration as president of the board, denied being the leader of a communist group; he was not believed until the RDA's 1952 affiliation with UDSR. On the 24th of that same month, Boigny delivered a statement in the Assembly contesting the result of the elections, which he declared tainted by fraud. He also denounced what he saw as the exploitation of overseas deputies as "voting machines", who, as political pawns, supported the colonial government's every action. Thereafter, Houphouët-Boigny and the RDA were briefly unsuccessful before their success was renewed in 1956; at that year's elections, the party received 502,711 of 579,550 votes cast. From then on, his relationship with Communism was forgotten, and he was embraced as a moderate. Named as a member of the Committees on Universal Suffrage (distinct from the aforementioned committee regulating said suffrage), Constitutional Laws, Rules and Petitions. On 1 February 1956, he was appointed Minister Discharging the Duties of the Presidency of the Council in the government of Guy Mollet, a post he held until 13 June 1957. This marked the first time an African was elected to such a senior position in the French government. His principal achievement in this role was the creation of an organisation of Saharan regions that would help ensure sustainability for the French Union and counter Moroccan territorial claims in the Sahara.

On 6 November 1957, Houphouët-Boigny became Minister of Public Health and Population in the Gaillard administration and attempted to reform the public health code. Following his Gaillard ministry, he was again appointed Minister of State from 14 May 1958;– 20 May 1959. In this capacity, he participated in the development of France's African policy, notably in the cultural domain. At his behest, the Bureau of French Overseas Students and the University of Dakar were created. On 4 October 1958, Houphouët-Boigny was one of the signatories, along with de Gaulle, of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic. The last post he held in France was Minister-Counsellor in the Michel Debré government, from 23 July 1959 to 19 May 1961.

Leading up to independence

Until the mid-1950s, French colonies in west and central Africa were grouped within two federations: French Equatorial Africa (AEF) and French West Africa (AOF). Côte d'Ivoire was part of the AOF, financing roughly two-thirds of its budget. Wishing to free the country from the guardianship of the AOF, Houphouët-Boigny advocated an Africa made up of nations that would generate wealth rather than share poverty and misery. He participated actively in the drafting and adoption of the framework of the Defferre Loi Cadre, a French legal reform which, in addition to granting autonomy to African colonies, would break the ties that bound the different territories together, giving them more autonomy by means of local assemblies. The Deffere Loi Cadre was far from unanimously accepted by Houphouët-Boigny's compatriots in Africa: Léopold Sédar Senghor, leader of Senegal, was the first to speak out against this attempted "Balkanization" of Africa, arguing that the colonial territories "do not correspond to any reality: be it geographical, economic, ethnic, or linguistic". Senghor argued that maintaining the AOF would give the territories stronger political credibility and would allow them to develop harmoniously as well as emerge as a genuine people. This view was shared by most members of the African Democratic Rally, who backed Ahmed Sékou Touré and Modibo Keïta, placing Houphouët-Boigny in the minority at the 1957 congress in Bamako.

Following the adoption of the Loi Cadre reform on 23 June 1956, a territorial election was held in Ivory Coast on 3 March 1957, in which the PDCI—transformed under Houphouët-Boigny's firm control into a political machine—won many seats. Houphouët-Boigny, who was already serving as a minister in France, as President of the Territorial Assembly and as mayor of Abidjan, chose Auguste Denise to serve as Vice President of the Government Council of Ivory Coast, even though Houphouët-Boigny remained, the only interlocutor in the colony for France. Houphouët-Boigny's popularity and influence in France's African colonies had become so pervasive that one French magazine claimed that by 1956, the politician's photograph "was in all the huts, on the lapels of coats, on the corsages of African women and even on the handlebars of bicycles".

On 7 April 1957, the prime minister of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, on a visit to Ivory Coast, called on all colonies in Africa to declare their independence; Houphouët-Boigny retorted to Nkrumah:

Your experience is rather impressive... But due to the human relationships between the French and the Africans, and because in the 20th century, people have become interdependent, we considered that it would perhaps be more interesting to try a new and different experience than yours and unique in itself, one of a Franco-African community based on equality and fraternity.

Unlike many African leaders who immediately demanded independence, Houphouët-Boigny wished for a careful transition within the "ensemble français" because, according to him, political independence without economic independence was worthless. He also invited Nkrumah to meet up with him in 10 years to see which one of the two had chosen the best approach toward independence. Boigny would win the wager as he ruled until till his death and brought his nation significant gains amplified by Nkruma's disastrous economic policy.

On 28 September 1958 Charles de Gaulle proposed a constitutional referendum to the Franco-African community: the territories were given the choice of either supporting the constitution or proclaiming their independence and being cut off from France. For Houphouët-Boigny, the choice was simple: "Whatever happens, Côte d'Ivoire will enter directly to the Franco-African community. The other territories are free to group between themselves before joining." Only Guinea chose independence; its leader, Ahmed Sékou Touré, opposed Houphouët-Boigny, stating that his preference was "freedom in poverty over wealth in slavery". The referendum produced the French Community, an institution meant to be an association of free republics which had jurisdiction over foreign policy, defense, currency, common ethnic and financial policy, and strategic raw materials.

Houphouët-Boigny was determined to stop the hegemony of Senegal in West Africa and a political confrontation ensued between Ivorian and Senegalese leaders. Houphouët-Boigny refused to participate in the Inter-African conference in Dakar on 31 December 1958, which was intended to lay the foundation for the Federation of Francophone African States. Although that federation was never realised, Senegal and Mali (known at the time as French Sudan) formed their own political union, the Mali Federation. After de Gaulle allowed the Mali Federation independence in 1959, Houphouët-Boigny tried to sabotage the federation's efforts to wield political control; in cooperation with France, he managed to convince Upper Volta, Dahomey, and Niger to withdraw from the Mali Federation.

Two months after the 1958 referendum, seven member states of French West Africa, including Ivory Coast, became autonomous republics within the French Community. Houphouët-Boigny had won his first victory against those supporting federalism. This victory established the conditions that made the future "Ivorian miracle" possible, since between 1957 and 1959, budget revenues grew by 158%, reaching 21,723,000,000 CFA francs.