The scientist-president overthrown after the Congo's first free election
In 1977 a military tribunal sentenced him to death for complicity in Ngouabi's assassination, and only the intervention of Omar Bongo of Gabon saved him from the firing squad.
A biologist trained in agronomy and genetics who became prime minister of Massamba-Débat's government in 1963 at the age of 32. Under the People's Republic he was sentenced to death for alleged complicity in Ngouabi's assassination, then released into exile in France; at the 1991 sovereign national conference he led the early rounds for transitional prime minister before losing the fourth ballot to Milongo. In 1992 he led the social-democratic UPADS to victory over Sassou Nguesso and became the Congo's first democratically elected president, only to be driven into exile again by the 1997 civil war.
Activities and affiliations
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1963–1997
Republic of the Congo state institutionsPrime Minister, PresidentMain
Government and administration -
Congolese Party of Labour (PCT)
Government and administration
Career Timeline
- 1956Agricultural engineering diploma, École Supérieure d'Agriculture, Tunis
- 1961Doctorate in science, University of Paris; researcher at ORSTOM
- 1963–1966Prime minister under Massamba-Débat, also minister of agriculture
- 1966–1970Professor of genetics; director, École Supérieure des Sciences
- 1977Death sentence for alleged role in Ngouabi's assassination, commuted to life
- 1979–1990Exile in France; UNESCO director for exact and natural sciences
- 1991Founded the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS)
- 1992–1997President; overthrown after the 1997 civil war
Related historical events
The Presidency: Institutional Deadlock and Economic Stabilisation, 1992-1997
Lissouba was invested as president on 31 August 1992. He appointed Stéphane-Maurice Bongho-Nouarra prime minister and formed a 27-member cabinet, but the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) declared the 11 August UPADS-PCT agreement void over the distribution of portfolios. When the opposition coalition passed a motion of censure on 31 October, Lissouba dissolved the National Assembly on 17 November under Article 81 of the constitution; the opposition called the decree unconstitutional and urged civil disobedience. A march on the presidential palace on 30 November ended in clashes with fatalities, and only mediation by army chief of staff Jean-Marie Mokoko produced the 3 December accord establishing a national-unity government of 60 percent opposition and 40 percent presidential camp. Disputes over the results of the early legislative elections in May and June 1993 escalated into political and ethnic violence in Brazzaville's Bacongo and Makélékélé districts; estimates of the death toll range from 1,000 to 3,000, with roughly 300,000 people displaced. An international arbitral panel's January 1994 ruling confirmed the election results and closed the deadlock.
Economically, Lissouba's government responded to the 50 percent devaluation of the CFA franc in January 1994 and to IMF requirements with the Programme d'action et de relance économique et sociale (PARESO), which centered on privatising state enterprises, cutting the public payroll, and raising tax receipts. In 1995 it reduced working hours and trimmed salaries and allowances to cut public spending. In June 1996 the Paris Club cancelled 67 percent of the country's debt, and a 1994 hydrocarbons law shifted oil development from concessions to production-sharing contracts, increasing the state's share of the oil rent. A $150 million loan concluded in April 1993 with the American firm Occidental Petroleum later became the basis for the charge that he had 'sold off Congolese oil' cheaply.
Assessments of his presidency are divided. Supporters credit him with stabilising finances that had been near collapse and with reducing the debt burden. Critics hold that dissolving the Bongho-Nouarra assembly disabled negotiated politics and opened the way to violence. Responsibility for the February 1965 triple murder and for the ethnic violence of 1993-94 remains an unresolved controversy in Congolese political history.