biography
| name: |
Sassau-Nguesso, Denis
|
pronunciation:
[sasoh ngwesoh]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1943– )
|
| biography:
| Congolese soldier, politician, and president (1979–92, 1997– ). A member of the left-wing Congolese Labour Party, he became president of the Congo after his predecessor had been assassinated in a coup. He handed over real power to his own Congolese Labour Party's central committee. He was successful in strengthening the Congo's relationship with France and the USA in preference to maintaining its traditional ties with the USSR. At a national conference in 1991 he was severely criticized for gross mismanagement of oil revenues, was implicated in political assassinations, and had his executive powers curtailed. He was soundly defeated in presidential elections in 1992, but in 1997 he overthrew former president Pascal Lissouba and resumed the presidency himself. He was elected president in 2002 in what was only the second-ever presidential election in Congo's history. |
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