Zacharie Myboto - in Opposition

In Opposition

After 23 years in the government, Myboto—who was considered one of the leading figures in the PDG regime—resigned from the government on 11 January 2001. He then took up his seat in the National Assembly on 1 March 2001. In the December 2001 parliamentary election, he was re-elected to the National Assembly from Mounana.

After leaving the government, Myboto became a critic of the government. He owned L'Autre Journal, a newspaper that was published bimonthly and included articles criticizing the government, but it was suspended by the National Communications Council in December 2003 on the grounds that some of its content could "disturb public order". The offices of L'Autre Journal were searched by the police in March 2004.

Having departed the government four years earlier, Myboto resigned from the PDG on 30 April 2005 and created a new party, the UGDD; as a result, he also resigned from the National Assembly at the same time. Referring to his long history of participation in the PDG regime, he asked the people to forgive his past mistakes. Myboto and members of his family were reportedly subjected to harassment after he left the party, and some of his relatives reportedly lost their government jobs.

On 9 October 2005, Myboto officially announced his candidacy for the 27 November 2005 presidential election before a crowd of over 5,000 supporters. Fiercely critical of Bongo and the government, Myboto alleged that Bongo had won the December 1998 presidential election through fraud. Running as an independent candidate (because the UGDD was not legalized prior to the election), he placed third out of five candidates, winning 6.58% of the vote. Following Bongo's victory, Myboto and second place candidate Pierre Mamboundou called for a general strike in early December, alleging fraud. Later in the month, they legally appealed against the results, asking that they be cancelled due to fraud. The Constitutional Court rejected the appeals on 5 January 2006, confirming Bongo's victory.

As a representative of the opposition, Myboto was included on the joint majority–opposition commission on the reform of the electoral process, which began its work in May 2006 and included 12 representatives from the Presidential Majority as well as 12 from the opposition. In the December 2006 parliamentary election, he was elected to the National Assembly as the UGDD candidate in Mounana Commune. Following the election, he became the President of the Group of the Forces of Change (GFC), a parliamentary group composed of deputies from various opposition parties, in March 2007.