Nouhak Phoumsavan
ໜູຮັກ ພູມສະຫວັນ
Lao revolutionary leader and president
On 2 December 1975 the National Congress of People's Representatives elected Nouhak Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the new Lao People's Democratic Republic government. Sources credit Kaysone Phomvihane, not Nouhak, as the presiding official who proclaimed the republic.
A founding figure of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party and a leading Pathet Lao revolutionary. Born in Mukdahan, Siam (now Thailand) to an ethnic Lao family, he was ranked second after Kaysone in the party's Politburo at its 1955 founding congress and joined the Politburo at the 2nd Congress in 1972 with responsibility for economic affairs. He served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance after 1975, and was President from 1992 to 1998.
Career timeline
- 1945Founding member of the Lao revolutionary movement
- 1949Chairman of the Lao Resistance Committee for the Eastern Region
- 1950Minister of Finance in the Lao Resistance Government
- 1954Represented the Pathet Lao at the Geneva Conference
- 1955Ranked second after Kaysone in the party Politburo at the founding congress
- 1972Joined the Politburo at the 2nd Congress, assigned economic affairs
- 1975Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance
- 1989President of the second Supreme People's Assembly
- 1992President