Political Career
Initially he was a civil servant, working in the Department of Agriculture (1961–63). But his abilities brought him to become Minister of Agriculture (1963–66) and then Prime Minister (1963–66) under President Alphonse Massamba-Débat. When Massamba-Débat was overthrown in 1968 Lissouba remained in government under Marien Ngouabi and although he was suspended from political activity from 1969 to 1971 he was on the Central Committee of the Congolese Workers Party in 1973. In 1977 he was implicated for involvement in the assassination of Ngouabi and arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1977. He was released in 1979 but had to live in exile in France from 1979 to 1990. In France he was a professor at the University of Paris and then worked for UNESCO in Paris and Nairobi. When President Denis Sassou Nguesso was forced to move the Congo towards democracy in 1991 Lissouba returned and was elected President in the August 1992 elections. He secured 36% of the vote as head of the left-wing Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (Union panafricaine pour la démocratie sociale, UPADS). In the run-off with second placed Bernard Kolelas, Lissouba got 61% of the votes.
Read more about this topic: Pascal Lissouba
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