Henriette Diabaté was born on March 13, 1935, in Bingerville, a suburb of the Ivorian capital. She completed her primary education in Soubré, Dimbokro and Gagnoa, where she obtained her Certificat d'Etudes Primaires (CEPE). She then attended the Collège Moderne des Jeunes Filles de Bingerville, graduating with a BEPC. A few years later, she passed the first part of her Baccalauréat at the Ecole Normale des Jeunes Filles in Senegal and obtained her final diploma at the Lycée Classique de Cocody3. An accomplished politician, she was the first woman minister of state and the first woman president of an institution in Côte d'Ivoire.
Henriette, the Republican...
Before embarking on her political career, she was a history professor from 1965 to 1995 at the Université Felix Houphouët-Boigny in Cocody. But her passion for politics took precedence over her academic career.
She was one of the founding members of the rassemblement des républicains (RDR), a liberal party in Côte d'Ivoire, and a member of the Réseau libéral africain and Liberal International. Founded by Djéni Kobina in 1994, it was chaired by Alassane Ouattara from 1999 to 2017, then by Henriette Diabaté from that date to the present day.
In 1999, some of the RDR's leaders, including Henriette Diabaté, were arrested on October 27 for violence during demonstrations organized by the party. In November, they were tried and sentenced to prison. But this ordeal was not enough to dampen the ardor of this woman, determined to fight alongside her mentor, Alassane Ouattara.
She was then appointed Secretary General of the RDR from 1999 to 2017, before being designated President of the RDR at the party's 3rd Congress on Sunday December 10, 2017 by current Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara.
Henriette Diabaté, the culture-loving Minister...
Henriette Diabaté was Minister of Culture and Francophonie during the military transition in 20002. She was one of the driving forces behind the construction of the Palais de la Culture in Abidjan.
The project to build the Maison de la Culture was initiated by the Ivorian government under President Félix Houphouët-Boigny, with Bernard B. Dadié, then Minister of Culture from 1978 to 1982. The Palais de la Culture was first sketched out in 1992 by Henriette Dagri Diabaté, then Minister of Culture. She played an active role in the negotiation of the agreement, which led to the signing of the contract on Saturday March 26, 1994, at the Office of the Minister of Culture, in the presence of the Ministers of Construction and Foreign Affairs, and Bernard Zadi Zaourou.
In 2004, she was appointed Minister of Justice under President Laurent Gbagbo. Since May 18, 2011, she has been Grand Chancellor of the National Order.
Married to Lamine Diabaté, a former Minister of State, she has five children, including the architect Issa Diabaté. To magnify and pay tribute to her, a film entitled “Henriette, l'Ivoirienne”, directed by documentary filmmakers Philippe Calderon and Idriss Diabaté was presented to the public on February 6, 2020, at the Palais de la culture in Abidjan-Treichville.
“Henriette, l'Ivoirienne” portrays the vision of a committed woman, a mother, an academic working on linguistic memory and ethnic history, who “fell into politics” because of her convictions in the cause of women and democracy.