Background
Auguste Denise was born onFebruary 3, 1906, at Tiassale.
Auguste Denise was born onFebruary 3, 1906, at Tiassale.
He was educated at the Ecole Normale William Ponty, in Senegal, and later graduated from the Dakar Faculty of Medicine and Pharmacy two years after Houphouet, who had become an MD in 1925.
He started practising medicine in 1928 at the Abidjan Central Hospital apd became Chief Medical Officer at Dakalo and then Head Surgeon at the Abidjan Hospital. For the next 17 years he practised in the Ivory Coast and Senegal. In 1946 he was Chief Medical Officer at Grand Lahou, Ivory Coast.
In October 1946 he went to Bamako to take part, together with Houphouet, in the creation of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain. Elected Territorial Councillor in 1952 and then Deputy, he remained in this position until 1960. Elected First Vice-President of the Territorial Assembly in May 1957, he became President of the Government Council in July 1958 and then President of the Provisional Government in December of the same year.
In April 1959 Houphouet Boigny quit the French cabinet and returned home to lead the country to independence. Denise acknowledged his colleague’s leadership and was also replaced by Jean-Baptiste Mockey as secretary- general of the PDCI. He was made Minister of State in charge of relations with the other member countries of the Entente Council, comprising the Ivory Coast, Niger, Upper Volta, Dohomey and Togo. He has remained a Minister of State ever since.