The new Hotel de la Paix, with three separate bungalows for private presidential meetings, now looks like a ghost building. This and many other lavish projects have started deteriorating as those in Yamoussoukro. However, Houphouet-Boigny left in Yamoussoukro what no other leader in Africa can match. Each of the 7,000 seats in the basilica has an individual air-conditioning duct. The basilica, whose compound is untended, now has cracks in the marble esplanade and a few hundred worshippers.
Most African leaders are openly clumsy.
Henri Konan Bedie who enthusiastically presided over a corrupt government, manipulated elections, and changed the laws to exclude his main rival, Alassane D. Quattara, a Prime Minister under Houphouet-Boigny. Quattara was disqualified by Bedie on the grounds that one of his parents had come from Burkina Faso. Surprisingly, Bedie's quest to exclude Quattara from running against him led to his overthrow by Gen. Robert Guei, who first swore not to run for the presidency but changed his mind and used Bedie's tricks book to stay in power. He was forced out of power but iniquitously the new leader is also relying on Bedie's tricks book to run the country down. Mugabe, in a fight with nature, is trying to transmogrify himself to match his young wife and to justify his continued stay in power by significantly reducing his age.