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Socialist Affairs follows the life of the new President of Côte d'Ivoire - Laurent Gbagbo

Laurent Gbagbo, elected president of Côte d'Ivoire last October, describes himself simply enough as "history teacher, trade unionist and writer". He could with justice have added "political fighter with experience of many battles with dictatorship".

Born to a modest family in 1945 in the village of Mama in the centre-west of Côte d'Ivoire, the world's largest cocoa producer, he was a hard-working and intelligent student going first to primary school then to the junior seminary of St Dominic Savio at Gagnoa, the nearest large town to his birthplace. He had to move the Lycée Classique in Abidjan, then the capital of the country, to take his baccalaureate in 1965, going on to the city's university. His country had become independent of France in 1960 and was ruled by Félix Houphouët-Boigny who was destined to cling on to power for more than three decades till his death in 1993.

His first period of study outside the country came when he went to France, a country with which he will later become closely involved. At the University of Lyon he followed a course in Latin, Greek and Humanities but decided to go back to Abidjan to take his degree, returning to Paris and the Sorbonne for his master's degree in history in 1970. That year saw him back in the Lycée Classique teaching history and geography in a way the dictatorship did not appreciate and his attitude as a trade unionist meant that he was kept in the army for nearly two years from 1971 where one of his instructors turned out to be a certain Captain Robert Gueï who was to cross his path again later.

Free to pursue his own career once again in 1973, he blended the academic life with politics. In 1974 he joined the staff of the Institute of African Art, History and Archaeology, IHAAA, of the University of Abidjan while at the same time preparing successfully to present his doctoral thesis on "Côte d'Ivoire: Economy and Society on the Eve of Independence" for the University of Paris VII in 1978. The following year he published his first book, a life of Mandingo King Sundjata and a year later was appointed director of the IHAAA.

His new post did not put a stop to his political activities and as a member of the university teachers' union he took a prominent part in what Houphouët-Boigny called "the teachers' plot" of 1982 against the dictatorship which coincided with the first moves to found what was later to become the Ivorian Popular Front, FPI. Understandably he found it wiser to quit his native country for France again where he was accepted as a political exile.

He decided to return to Côte d'Ivoire in September 1988 founding in clandestine circumstances the FPI, of which he became the first secretary-general, two months later. In 1990 when Houphouët-Boigny was persuaded to allow parties other than his own to stand in elections the FPI, today a full member of the Socialist International, entered an alliance with other parties but while they decided to boycott the presidential election that year Gbagbo's supporters put him forward as a candidate. He did well and secured 18.3 per cent of the votes and consolidated his position as a national figure. Perhaps more importantly, he was elected with eight FPI colleagues to the National Assembly, representing his home constituency of Ouragahio.

He was in trouble once again in 1992 when, after the protests he led against military action against students, he was jailed for six months.

After Houphouët-Boigny's death in 1993 the presidency was taken over by Henri Konan Bédié and when elections were held two years later the FPI staged an "active boycott" of the vote in protest against the voting regulations which Gbagbo felt were unfair. Nevertheless he was re-elected to the Assembly for Ouragahio in 1996.

In December 1999 Robert Gueï started an army mutiny about pay and toppled Konan Bédié and last year sought to strengthen his position by calling elections on 22 October in which he claimed victory. After the count revealed he had won 59.36 per cent of the votes cast, Gbagbo assumed the presidency, not before one faction within the armed forces answering to Gueï had killed many Ivorians who had come into the streets to protest against Gueï's own attempts to claim an electoral win.

The new president, who has a close political collaborator in his wife Simone, has promised that he will seek to mend the wounds that his country's body politic has suffered.

Signed articles represent the views of the authors only, not necessarily those of Socialist Affairs or the Socialist International

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