CULLED FROM THE BBC WEB SITE

Ivory Coast Fights Personality Cult by Elizabeth Blunt in Abidjan

The new government in the Ivory Coast has banned the display of the
president's picture in hotels and airports.

It says it is making a stand against the cult of personality which has
marked the country's media in the past.

Thursday night's television news began the usual way - the way it has begun
as long as anyone can remember, with selected highlights from the
president's postbag.

This time, it featured a particularly fulsome letter from the King of
Morocco, congratulating President Laurent Gbagbo on his election.

The bulletin ended as it normally does once a week with the government's
official spokesman giving an account of that day's cabinet meeting.

SURPRISE

But at this point, the new government spokesman sprang a surprise.

With a barely concealed grin, he announced that it had been decided to make
some changes in the official media.

There were to be no readings from the postbag, no more highlights of the
president's day, and all the official portraits of the president were to be
removed from public places like hotels and airports.

In short, there was to be no more of the kind of personality cult which he
said was a sure sign of a backward country.

For years, Ivory Coast state television and radio have been alternatively
the laughing stock and the despair of the kind of Ivorian intellectuals who
now dominate Laurent Gbagbo's government.

Now, finally, they are in charge, and with one small but obvious deeply
satisfying gesture they are signalling to the electorate that some things at
least really are going to change.
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