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.
The opposition leader from Pool who ended one-party rule
On 7 November 1988 and 20 November 1989 he wrote to President Sassou Nguesso proposing a national round table on the country's problems.
A Congolese politician from Mboloki in Kinkala District, Pool, who founded the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI) and pressed for a multiparty system while the one-party state still stood. At the 1991 sovereign national conference he opened the parties' addresses and backed André Milongo's election as transitional prime minister, making him a key opposition figure of the democratic transition. He lost the 1992 presidential runoff to Lissouba and, appointed Lissouba's prime minister of national unity during the 1997 civil war, was ousted by Sassou Nguesso's loyalists and went into exile.
Career timeline
1989Founded the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI); party statutes filed with the Interior Ministry
1991Opened the parties' addresses at the sovereign national conference
1992Second in the first round of the presidential election (20.32%); lost the runoff to Lissouba
1994Elected mayor of Brazzaville
1997Appointed prime minister of national unity by Lissouba; ousted into exile when Sassou Nguesso's loyalists took Brazzaville
2000Sentenced to death in absentia by a Congolese court
2005Returned under amnesty, parliament adopted the amnesty law
The World Bank official who steered the transition
Two days before the 2002 election he withdrew his candidacy, saying 'the conditions for a transparent vote were not guaranteed.'
A finance technocrat who served as the Congo's first treasurer-general after independence and later as a World Bank executive director. When the one-party system collapsed, the 1991 sovereign national conference elected him transitional prime minister on a fourth ballot, giving him executive power to steer the country toward multiparty elections. After the transition he founded the Union for Democracy and the Republic (UDR-Mwinda) and remained a leading opposition figure against Denis Sassou Nguesso.
At his January 1970 swearing-in, Ngouabi vowed "fidelity to the Congolese people, to the revolution, and the Congolese Labour Party."
A military and political leader of Congo-Brazzaville. He led the establishment of the Congolese Labour Party and people’s republic in 1969, organizing Marxist-Leninist one-party institutions. His assassination in 1977 was followed by military-party succession struggles.
Career timeline
1968Led the coup grouping as head of the National Revolutionary Council (CNR)
1968–1977President of the Congo
1969Founded the Congolese Labour Party (PCT)
1969Renamed the country the People's Republic of the Congo, Africa's first Marxist-Leninist state
1974Re-elected chairman of the PCT Central Committee
The Owando bishop who chaired the National Conference
The 1991 sovereign national conference declared itself sovereign, abolished the People's Republic, and adopted a Fundamental Act for the transition.
A Congolese Catholic bishop and Jesuit priest who led the dioceses of Nkayi and Owando. As one-party rule collapsed, he was elected president of the presidium of the 1991 sovereign national conference and chaired it. When the conference declared itself sovereign and abolished the People's Republic, he headed the transitional Supreme Council of the Republic (CSR), which replaced the national assembly and steered the constitutional transition.
Career timeline
1973Ordained priest in Brazzaville (Jesuit)
1983First bishop of the Diocese of Nkayi
1986–1990Apostolic administrator of Pointe-Noire
1990Bishop of Owando
1991President of the National Sovereign Conference presidium
1991Chairman of the transitional Supreme Council of the Republic (CSR)
2003–2006President of the Congolese Episcopal Conference
Our country will not be totally independent until our people are free of the yoke of poverty.
A military leader of the Congolese Labour Party who became president in 1979 after serving as defense minister. He led the one-party state and oil-financed development. The 1991 National Conference and multiparty transition changed the power structure of his first presidency.
Career timeline
1968Took part in the coup that brought Ngouabi to power; founding member of the National Revolution Council
1973Director of State Security
1975Minister of Defense and Security (aged 32)
1977First vice-president of the PCT Military Committee
1979President of the People's Republic of Congo
1986–1987Chairman of the Organization of African Unity
1997Returned to power in the Second Civil War; sworn in as president
2002Won the presidency under the new constitution (89.4%)
Prime minister appointed under Congo's 1992 multiparty constitution
Appointed prime minister on 2 September 1992 with his government named on 7 September, he lost a no-confidence vote to the PCT-URD alliance on 31 October 1992.
Politician of Congo-Brazzaville. A government minister in the late 1960s, he was sentenced to ten years in prison in 1970 over an alleged anti-government plot, tortured in detention, and released in 1971 in poor health into exile in France. He returned with the introduction of multiparty politics in 1990, joined the presidium of the 1991 Sovereign National Conference, and was appointed prime minister by President Pascal Lissouba on 2 September 1992. Defeated by a no-confidence vote of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) and the Union for Democratic Renewal (URD) on 31 October, he resigned on 11 November. He went into exile in Belgium during the 1997 civil war and died in Brussels on 7 October 2007.
Career timeline
1964–1965President of the Economic and Social Council
1966Secretary of State at the Presidency for agriculture
1968Minister of Agriculture
1969–1970Minister of Public Works, Housing and Transport; dismissed by Ngouabi
1970–1971Sentenced to ten years for alleged complicity in an anti-government plot; imprisoned
1971–1977Exile in France
1991Seconded the presidium of the Sovereign National Conference under Ernest Kombo
1992Elected to the National Assembly for Mbama, Cuvette-Ouest
1992Prime Minister (2 September – 6 December)
late 1990sSpecial Adviser to the President with Minister of State rank, President of the Sociocultural Committee, Minister of National Defense
