IVORY COAST
Society

Society

State structure

Ivory Coast is a Republic. The President is directly elected for a 5-year term and is eligible for re-election once. The President appoints the Prime Minister and (upon the latter's nomination) then the other members of the cabinet. There is a multi-party democracy. Legislative power is vested in the Parliament, which is directly elected by the people for five years. The National Assembly (Assemblée nationale) has 225 members. In the event of the death of the president, he is succeeded by the president of the parliament.

Politics

The Comité National du Salut Public (CNSP), established by Guéï et al. in 1999, was a transitional regime with the aim of (assisting) the transition to a democratically elected government and putting things in order. The CNSP formed several transition cabinets, which initially included - in addition to junta members - civilian ministers from all parties that were part of the parliament dissolved by the junta. A revision of the constitution and electoral law was approved by a plebiscite in July 2000. Among other things, it further tightened the requirements for eligibility for president.

The current political situation is described in the history section.

Economy

Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer and has also turned to the production of other export crops. The large share of agriculture in the country's economy (20.1% in 2013) makes Ivory Coast very vulnerable to external factors such as world market prices and weather conditions. The strong regional economic position does not alter the fact that Ivory Coast is one of the poorest countries in the world. GDP per capita is $3,900 per year.

For several years, Ivory Coast has been a producer and exporter of oil. Its production is mainly offshore.

The Netherlands is the main export partner of Ivory Coast in 2017 followed by the united States, Nigeria, Germany, France and Canada. Ivory Coast imports in 2017 mainly from Nigeria, France and China.

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