Regional Outlook : Out of Africa a New Season of Discontent : Throughout the Continent there are calls for an end to one-party rule. Corruption and mismanagement have fueled the unrest.

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast â€”  It may have been the worst idea the political leaders of this country have had recently: staging one of their frequent “marches of supportâ€� on behalf of Felix Houphouet-Boigny, the 89-year-old president.

There had already been signs of public discontent--strikes and student demonstrations. But the authorities could not believe that the president’s name was about to lose the magic it had had for 30 years.

They were wrong.

The Marche de Soutien erupted in rock-throwing violence.

For the first time since Houphouet-Boigny rose to power, the streets rang with cries of “Houphouet voleur ! Houphouet menteur !� -- “Houphouet’s a thief! Houphouet’s a liar!�

The precipitous decline in respect for the leader who brought Ivory Coast its independence from France in 1960 and oversaw impressive economic growth in the ensuing 25 years shows how sharply the economic collapse of this once-thriving country has raised public sensitivity to corruption and mismanagement in the government.

But more important, it is a symptom of something that is sweeping Africa: public agitation for the end of one-party rule.

Most dramatic at the moment is the case of Liberia, where President Samuel K. Doe--himself the beneficiary of a military coup--is now threatened by an insurgency that has brought a rebel army to within a few miles of the capital, Monrovia. American ships stand off the Liberian coast ready to evacuate U.S. citizens if necessary.

Doe, who kept opposition parties intimidated by violence for years, asked the United States and other nations late last week to help end his nation’s civil war.

In Gabon, too, public unrest has erupted into violence. The oil-producing nation has been ruled by autocratic President Omar Bongo for 22 years. Last week, the government regained control of the country’s major oil port from rioters only by sending in hundreds of troops; meanwhile, oil production, the dominant force in the economy, had dropped to 20,000 barrels a day from 270,000.

Although Bongo agreed to restore multi-party democracy to the country, rioting broke out after opposition leader Joseph Redjambe died mysteriously in a hotel room May 23. Redjambe has still not been buried because the government fears the funeral would inspire further unrest.

Political agitation may be bursting Africa’s seams because nowhere in the world are genuine electoral contests as scarce: Of sub-Saharan Africa’s 44 countries, all but five--among them newly independent Namibia--are ruled by military dictatorships or single-party civilian governments. In some of the apparent exceptions, such as Senegal and Gambia, the dominant party has not lost an election in decades.

Preposterous electoral majorities are so common that when Doe claimed a bare majority in winning what most observers considered a rigged election in Liberia in 1985, the State Department praised his restraint in not claiming the customary 99%.

Steady economic decline has exacerbated the discontent. Most African countries lost ground in the 1980s, when the world prices of such key export commodities as coffee, tea, cotton and cocoa fell and the cost of imported machinery and oil grew.

Meanwhile, the load of foreign debt soared, to $134 billion in 1988 from $6 billion in 1970. That means much less money is available to finance education and health care and to provide cheap food.

But with economic conditions worsening, and word of the democratic upheaval in East Europe being broadcast across Africa, more and more African strongmen are feeling pressure to at least legalize political opposition.

Among them is Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko, the continent’s enduring one-man symbol of rapacity. A few weeks ago, Mobutu said he would permit the formation of up to three new Zairian political parties--parties have been banned since 1970--and would establish an interim government to prepare for elections within a year.

Mobutu’s decision came after a disastrous tour to gauge public opinion. Groups of business people, students, clergy and others assailed him with unprecedentedly harsh criticism of his 24-year regime, in which one of the most naturally rich lands in Africa has wallowed in poverty and despair.

He was only the latest African leader to hear such complaints. Earlier this year, Mathieu Kerekou, the strongman of Benin, capitulated to calls for a multi-party democracy in a tearful appearance before Parliament.

Agitation for multi-party democracy has not been welcomed everywhere. Tanzania’s Julius K. Nyerere, architect of the economically debilitating system known as “African socialism,� remarked recently that Tanzania may legalize opposition parties but only if they commit themselves to socialism.

Kenya’s one-party leadership under President Daniel Arap Moi has been even less receptive. He said that those agitating for democratic elections in his country are “lunatics.� In Zimbabwe, an increasingly autocratic President Robert Mugabe seems intent on moving his country from its present multi-party system to one-party rule. And Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, who has brought four years of relative peace to that tragic country, recently extended his mandate for five years.

Still, the old African argument in favor of one-party rule--that deep-rooted tribal factionalism will express itself destructively through multi-party systems--is being attacked increasingly as transparent.

“It’s always the people in power who promote the one-party state; as soon as they get overthrown, they come over to the other side,� observed Laurent Gbagbo, head of the Ivorian Popular Front, which is the first organization in Ivory Coast in years to apply for recognition as an opposition political party. “Ethnicism is not only an African phenomenon. You have it in Ireland, you have it between the Basques and the French in France. There it doesn’t interfere with multi-partyism.�

The Ivory Coast, which is witnessing the twilight of one of Africa’s most remarkable and visionary leaders, is a regional case study.

While other post-independence leaders promoted nationalism and ethnocentrism, Houphouet-Boigny welcomed people from Europe, the Middle East and neighboring African countries into the Ivorian work force and even the top levels of his government. He developed cocoa farming into the engine of Ivory Coast’s economy, to the point where the country’s high-grade beans accounted for 40% of the world’s production.

Houphouet-Boigny poured much of the income from cocoa into the Ivorian infrastructure, so that the quality of the country’s roads and utilities is unmatched in black Africa.

“Where else in Africa can you telephone anywhere in the world?� an admiring international economist said. “Where else can you drink the water out of the tap? This is a better infrastructure than you find even in Latin America.�

But the feeling that Houphouet-Boigny has overstayed his welcome is pervasive. Ivorians and foreigners alike wonder openly how aware the ailing, aging president is of the conditions around him.

“We think the economy has passed beyond his understanding,� said Marcel Ette, head of the university professors union. “He was the miracle, but he’s also the crisis. He doesn’t realize that the country has changed.�

A fall to 14-year lows in the world prices for cocoa and coffee, the two principal exports, has made visible the scale of corruption in the Ivorian economy, just as the shoals and sand bars of Abidjan’s lagoon emerge in the receding tide.

“When they were getting (the equivalent of $1.50) a kilogram for cocoa, the pie was big enough to absorb a lot of corruption,� a local economic specialist said.

But now the world market price is half that figure, and the national agricultural treasury, which financed much of the country’s development with plenty left over for payoffs and kickbacks, runs a deficit.

With economic crisis touching farmers, civil servants and the professional middle class, many Ivorians have lost their patience.

Some say that not even the party’s considerable apparatus of repressive measures--periodically, Houphouet-Boigny has had waves of intellectuals and opponents arrested--will work against such widespread discontent.

“In the past, no one cared much because there was plenty to eat,� a union leader said. “Now, they would have to arrest everybody.�

The professors union, in a document it called an “Autopsy of the Ivorian Economy,� complained, “We are told that 30 years isn’t long enough to forge national unity (to allow multi-partyism), but the experience of Ivory Coast shows that 30 years is long enough, in a poor country, for the creation of immense fortunes.�

The report noted that so many party favorites had been granted land tax exemptions that government receipts from the levy had fallen by two-thirds in 10 years, a period of unprecedented property speculation in the country. In the same period, about $3 million in government receipts from cocoa sales disappeared from the national agricultural treasury into secret accounts, according to an audit by a French bank. And close to $500 million a year was moved across the border into French and Swiss bank accounts.

There may be a faint glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. On May 1, the national leadership announced that it will allow the formation of political parties. It said in a statement that “the national consensus on which (Houphouet-Boigny’s Democratic Party of Ivory Coast) was based seems to be broken.�

Officials said that about a dozen political parties had already applied for registration.

Houphouet-Boigny, in the interview with Le Figaro, had insisted that multi-party democracy “doesn’t correspond to our African traditions; whenever it has existed, it has created confrontations, divisiveness, electoral fraud, political paralysis.�

Democracy in Africa: Gains and Losses

1. Liberia--A rebel army, now just miles from capital of Monrovia, is trying to oust President Samuel K. Doe, who has consistently rejected democratic reform.

2. Ivory Coast--14-year low in world prices for cocoa and coffee spawned an economic collapse amid calls for multi-party system.

3. Benin--Stongman Mathieu Kerekou approved creation of some opposition parties earlier this year after outbreak of rioting.

4. Gabon--Demonstrations for multi-party system led to rioting and brief takeover of country’s major oil port by demonstrators. Government of President Omar Bongo sent in troops to retake facility.

5. Zaire--Mobutu Sese Seko approved formation of up to three new political parties. Mobutu also said he would establish an interim government to prepare for elections within a year.

6. Kenya--President Daniel Arap Moi has called those pressing for democratic elections “lunatics.�

7. Uganda--President Yoweri Museveni recently extended his term in office for five years.

8. Tanzania--Opposition parties may be legalized, socialist strongman Julius K. Nyerere said recently, but only if they vow support for socialism.

9. Zimbabwe--President Robert Mugabe seems intent on moving his county from its present multi-party system to one-party rule.