The latter's powers are largely ceremonial, except when acting on the advice of the Council of Ministers.
Political legitimacy is based on majority rule.
The civilian authorities control the small police and paramilitary mobile forces. Subsistence and small-scale agricultural production and fishing support more than 80 percent of the population. Copra, cocoa, and beef cattle are the main cash crops. Government control over most media and occasionally strong pressures on the one independent newspaper, including the threat to revoke its business license, together with discrimination and violence against women, remain the major human rights problems. There were no reports of political or other extrajudicial killings.