Felix Houphouet Boigny

President Felix Houphouet-Boigny's party won an overwhelming majority in Parliament in multi-party voting that ended 30 years of uncontested elections, the Interior Ministry said. The governing Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast won 163 seats in the 175-member assembly, while the Ivorian Popular Front, the main opposition party, won nine of 10 seats captured by government opponents.

The eight-lane highways are bare. The 20 hotels are vacant. The three universities resemble high schools on summer break. The bars and restaurants are empty, save for the portraits of a short man watching over the deserted tables: Felix Houphouet-Boigny. President to generations, deity to many, Houphouet-Boigny died a year ago, but his spirit lives in this bush capital that he built to honor himself.

South African President Frederik W. de Klerk was greeted by hundreds of singing children when he arrived for a meeting with President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Yamoussoukro. South Africa and Ivory Coast do not have formal diplomatic relations, but they do have close trade ties. A front-page editorial in the government-controlled daily Fraternite Matin appeared to rule out closer diplomatic relations for now.

Africa's longest-serving leader, President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast, died Tuesday. He was 88. Henri Konan Bedie, the Speaker of Parliament, said he had taken over. State television introduced Konan Bedie as the new head of state in line with the constitution, which says the Speaker takes over on the president's death.

A milestone in African democracy could be reached during presidential elections Sunday in Ivory Coast. The nearly 90-year-old Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the West African country's only president in 30 years of independence, will face his first independent challenger ever, 45-year-old history professor Laurent Gbagbo. The challenger is a decided underdog, in part because he has been denied adequate access to the government-owned media.

Paramilitary troops broke up peaceful protests Friday with tear gas and smoke grenades, and Ivory Coast students retaliated by hurling firebombs, stoning cars and looting a supermarket. Hundreds of civil servants went on strike and joined university students outside downtown ministry offices yelling: "Houphouet: thief! Houphouet: corrupt!"

Security forces charged opposition party marchers, clubbing the crowd with batons and firing tear gas to break up a rally near the residence of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Abidjan. Several hundred demonstrators briefly sought refuge in the courtyard of the French Embassy, climbing its walls to escape police. Some of the marchers shouted for the resignation of Houphouet-Boigny, who has ruled this West African nation since its independence from France in 1960.

Africa's longest-serving leader, President Felix Houphouet-Boigny of Ivory Coast, died Tuesday. He was 88. Henri Konan Bedie, the Speaker of Parliament, said he had taken over. State television introduced Konan Bedie as the new head of state in line with the constitution, which says the Speaker takes over on the president's death.

"If you build it, he will come." That promise by a voice from above in the movie "Field of Dreams" is all that one American farmer, a baseball fanatic, needs to hear. He plows under the corn, builds a diamond, and, lo, pretty soon it's ghostly time to play ball. Life imitating art? Listen to this.

It could have been the face of a presidential candidate anywhere. Laurent Gbagbo sat with a frozen smile, equal parts boredom and fatigue, listening to a speech on a day when he had heard a half dozen already. Before sundown he would have just as many more to hear and a few yet to deliver himself. But this was no normal campaign whistle-stop.

President Felix Houphouet-Boigny's party won an overwhelming majority in Parliament in multi-party voting that ended 30 years of uncontested elections, the Interior Ministry said. The governing Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast won 163 seats in the 175-member assembly, while the Ivorian Popular Front, the main opposition party, won nine of 10 seats captured by government opponents.

The bittersweet scent of raw cocoa awaiting shipment overseas still permeates the huge lagoon-side port district here, a reminder that this is the commodity that created Africa's most stunning economic success story. But a few miles away in the business district known as "The Plateau," the windows of a top-floor office are sealed shut and the air conditioning is on full blast, the better to obliterate the chocolaty smell that symbolizes how reliance on a single major crop also came close to destroying the country.

It could have been the face of a presidential candidate anywhere. Laurent Gbagbo sat with a frozen smile, equal parts boredom and fatigue, listening to a speech on a day when he had heard a half dozen already. Before sundown he would have just as many more to hear and a few yet to deliver himself. But this was no normal campaign whistle-stop.

A milestone in African democracy could be reached during presidential elections Sunday in Ivory Coast. The nearly 90-year-old Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the West African country's only president in 30 years of independence, will face his first independent challenger ever, 45-year-old history professor Laurent Gbagbo. The challenger is a decided underdog, in part because he has been denied adequate access to the government-owned media.

Security forces charged opposition party marchers, clubbing the crowd with batons and firing tear gas to break up a rally near the residence of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Abidjan. Several hundred demonstrators briefly sought refuge in the courtyard of the French Embassy, climbing its walls to escape police. Some of the marchers shouted for the resignation of Houphouet-Boigny, who has ruled this West African nation since its independence from France in 1960.

Paramilitary troops broke up peaceful protests Friday with tear gas and smoke grenades, and Ivory Coast students retaliated by hurling firebombs, stoning cars and looting a supermarket. Hundreds of civil servants went on strike and joined university students outside downtown ministry offices yelling: "Houphouet: thief! Houphouet: corrupt!"

The cocoa trader had been waiting for two hours at the presidential palace when an aide to President Felix Houphouet-Boigny finally emerged to tender his regrets. "He said, 'The cocoa market is down, so he's too depressed to see you,' " the trader recalls. Houphouet-Boigny is too well known in the world of cocoa for the trader to have been surprised at this evidence that the president's health and spirits track the market as well as figures on a trader's computer screen.

The bittersweet scent of raw cocoa awaiting shipment overseas still permeates the huge lagoon-side port district here, a reminder that this is the commodity that created Africa's most stunning economic success story. But a few miles away in the business district known as "The Plateau," the windows of a top-floor office are sealed shut and the air conditioning is on full blast, the better to obliterate the chocolaty smell that symbolizes how reliance on a single major crop also came close to destroying the country.

"If you build it, he will come." That promise by a voice from above in the movie "Field of Dreams" is all that one American farmer, a baseball fanatic, needs to hear. He plows under the corn, builds a diamond, and, lo, pretty soon it's ghostly time to play ball. Life imitating art? Listen to this.

South African President Frederik W. de Klerk was greeted by hundreds of singing children when he arrived for a meeting with President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Yamoussoukro. South Africa and Ivory Coast do not have formal diplomatic relations, but they do have close trade ties. A front-page editorial in the government-controlled daily Fraternite Matin appeared to rule out closer diplomatic relations for now.