Congo, Republic of

Country in west-central Africa, bounded north by Cameroon and the Central African Republic, east and south by the Democratic Republic of Congo, west by the Atlantic Ocean, and northwest by Gabon.

Government

The 1992 constitution provides for a president and a two-chamber legislature, consisting of a 125-member national assembly and a 60-member senate. The president and national assembly are directly elected by universal suffrage for five-year terms and the senate for a six-year term. The president appoints a prime minister from the majority party within the assembly.

History

Occupied from the 15th century by the Bakongo, Bateke, and Sanga, the area was exploited by Portuguese slave traders. From 1889 it came under French administration, becoming part of French Equatorial Africa in 1910.

The Congo became an autonomous republic within the French Community in 1958, and Abbé Fulbert Youlou, a Roman Catholic priest who involved himself in politics and was suspended by the church, became prime minister and then president when full independence was achieved in 1960. Two years later plans were announced for a one-party state, but in 1963, after industrial unrest, Youlou was forced to resign.

One-party state

A new constitution was approved, and Alphonse Massamba-Débat, a former finance minister, became president, adopting a policy of ‘scientific socialism’. The National Revolutionary Movement (MNR) was declared the only political party. In 1968 Capt Marien Ngouabi overthrew Massamba-Débat in a military coup, and the national assembly was replaced by a National Council of the Revolution. Ngouabi proclaimed a Marxist state but kept economic links with France.

In 1970 the nation became the People's Republic of the Congo, with the Congolese Labour Party (PCT) as the only party, and in 1973 a new constitution provided for an assembly chosen from a single party list. In 1977 Ngouabi was assassinated, and Col Joachim Yhombi-Opango took over. He resigned in 1979 and was succeeded by Denis Sassou-Nguessou, who moved away from Soviet influence and strengthened links with France, the USA, and China.

In 1984 Sassou-Nguessou was elected for another five-year term. He increased his control by combining the posts of head of state, head of government, and president of the central committee of the PCT.

Communism abandoned

In 1990 the PCT announced political reforms, including the abandonment of Marxist-Leninism and an eventual end of the one-party system; in 1991 the country was renamed the Republic of Congo.

Multiparty system adopted

A new constitution was approved by referendum in March 1992, and multiparty elections were held in August. A coalition dominated by the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS) won the most assembly seats, though no overall majority, and Pascal Lissouba became the country's first democratically elected president.

In November 1992 Lissouba dissolved the newly elected national assembly and called fresh elections. The UPADS-led coalition won 69 of the 125 assembly seats when these were held in May-June 1993, but the opposition queried the results and they were eventually declared void. Lissouba appointed former military leader Jacques-Joachim Yhombi-Opango of the Rally for Democracy and Development as prime minister, whereupon the opposition coalition chose a rival prime minister to head a parallel ‘government of national unity’. Strikes and violence followed. In February 1994 an international panel examining the disputed elections declared that, although results in nine constituencies were invalid, the UPADS-led coalition retained its absolute assembly majority. In January 1995, in an attempt to create political stability, Yhombi-Opango formed a new government, including members of the opposition.

In August 1996 Charles David Ganao was appointed prime minister.

Violence between rival factions

France in mid-June 1997 sent tanks to reinforce its 1,250-strong force in Congo, amid reports of ‘butchery’ on the streets. France began pulling its troops out of the country a few days later, after having evacuated more than 5,000 foreign nationals caught up in the violent political conflict. Heavy fighting ensued between pro- and antipresidential factions, who battled in late June for control of the airport. A short-lived ceasefire between the chief rivals, President Lissouba and former dictator Sassou-Nguesso, was broken in July. In September 1997, following Sassou-Nguesso's refusal to support President Lissouba, fighting broke out around the capital, Brazzaville, between rival supporters of the two men, despite Prime Minister Bernard Kolelas's formation of a unity government. As fighting continued, in October supporters of Sassou-Nguesso occupied the presidential palace and took control of the country. In November Sassou-Nguesso was sworn in as president, promising national reconciliation.

In November 1999 the government claimed that rebels had signed an accord to end their violence, but disagreement and violence continued to the end of 1999 when a United Nations (UN) report discovered thousands of displaced civilians and victims of violence, including starving children and women routinely raped by soldiers. Oxfam estimated the number of victims to be between 150,000 and half a million, and called on the international community to act to end the state of catastrophe.

In presidential elections in March 2002, Sassou-Nguesso was re-elected for a seven-year term with 89% of the vote. The main opposition candidate, former president André Milongo, withdrew from the contest in protest at alleged electoral fraud.