THOUGH 60% of Ivorians are under 25, the country’s politics is still firmly in the grip of old men. The president, Alassane Ouattara, is 71, while his prime minister, Daniel Kablan Duncan, soon turns 70. The leader of the ruling party’s coalition partner, Henri Konan Bédié, a former president himself, is nearly 79. So Jean-Louis Billon, the commerce minister, who is 49 this year, is a relative stripling. More to the point, he is one of the government’s few ministers who genuinely believe in the free market and liberal values.
After studying at universities in France and Florida, he cut his teeth in the cocoa industry in Wisconsin before returning home in 1995 to work for his family business. His father, Pierre Billon, was a tycoon and close confidant of Côte d’Ivoire’s founding father, Félix Houphouët-Boigny. SIFCA, the family firm, was the country’s leading cocoa exporter. In 2001, the younger Mr Billon took the helm after his father died, diversifying it into one of Africa’s biggest agro-industrial firms.
Mr Billon’s relative youth and business acumen help explain his status as the darling of foreign investors and diplomats in Abidjan, the country’s commercial capital. In a country ranked this year a wretched 177 out of 185 in the World Bank’s “Doing Business” index, he calls for lower taxes and stronger anti-trust laws, and freely criticises the statist inclinations of his colleagues. “I know this country can do better than it is doing today,” he says.
The commerce ministry is not Mr Billon’s first foray into politics. He was elected mayor of his father’s native village in 2001 and was an energetic president of the Ivorian chamber of commerce. He also earned a reputation as someone who spoke out against authority. He lambasted both the former president, Laurent Gbagbo, and the rebels who controlled the northern half of the country until 2010.
Now that he is on the national political stage, a lot of people speculate about his ambitions. Some predict he will one day run for president.