Ivory Coast Officially declared a French colony in 1893, it became a territory of
French West Africa in 1910, though it was not completely pacified until 1913. Led by
Houphouët-Boigny, it became self-governing in 1956. It joined the
French Community in 1958, and achieved full independence on 7 August 1960. Under Houphouët-Boigny, it had some of Africa's highest growth rates in the 1970s through attracting considerable foreign investment. However, this was managed through allowing foreign companies to export most of their profits, so that most of the population benefited relatively little from this economic expansion. In addition, its agricultural exports were suffering from deforestation, which reduced the size of its forests by 80 per cent in the twentieth century. The decline of world market prices for its main exports, coffee and cocoa, from 1979 and again from 1986 led to a dramatic decline in income (decline in export revenue 1986–9: 50 per cent). The effect of this was compounded by a reduction of state services and employment, which triggered large-scale unrest. Houphouët-Boigny was thus forced to agree to some degree of democratization, which did not prevent him from manipulating the 1990 elections. He died of cancer, and was succeeded by Henri Konan Bédié as interim President.
New presidential elections were not held until October 1995. Boycotted by the opposition parties, they resulted in an easy win for Konan Bédié, whose ruling Democracy Party of the Ivory Coast (Partie Démocratique du Côte Ivoire, PDCI) also won the parliamentary elections later in the year. An ever more desolate economic situation in one of the world's poorest countries led to growing popular protests. Crucially, the government became unable to pay the military. In 1999, army chief Robert Guéï led a successful coup, which was supported by large parts of the PDCI. Under strong pressure from the
UN, the
World Bank, and the
IMF, elections were held in 2000, which were won by the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI, Ivorian Popular Front). Under President Laurent Gbagbo, it formed a coalition government with the PDCI. Although the new coalition government enjoyed a large parliamentary majority, popular protests and human rights violations by government troops continued.
