Congo-Brazzaville - Party Politics
In 1992 the first multi-party elections were held. Pascal Lissouba was elected President; his party, the Union panafricaine pour la démocratie sociale (UPADS), won the legislative elections with only a relative majority. The UPADS formed an alliance with the PCT which broke up when the PCT did not get all the key positions in the government it had asked for. Support for UPADS is found primarily in the departments of Niari, Bouenza and Lekoumou, in the southern region of the country.
Another alliance ensued, this time between the PCT and Bernard Kolélas MCDDI (Mouvement congolais pour la démocratie et le développement intégral). After this coalition received a vote of no confidence in parliament in October 1992, Pascal Lissouba dissolved the National Assembly and new elections were scheduled for 1993. At this point the problems with the army still were not solved. When the coalition between the MCDDI and the PCT started a campaign of civil disobedience protesting against Lissouba and demanding to form a new government, the armed forces set up a transitional government.
In the 1991-1992 transition to multiparty elections, the UPADS was part of the Alliance Nationale pour la Democratie (AND) which also included the Party Congolais du Travail (PCT) the current ruling party. In the election held in June-July 1992, UPADS won 39 out of the 125 seats, and together with its AND allies (mainly the PCT), gained a slight majority of seats in the National Assembly. In the August 1992 Presidential election, UPADS leader Pascal Lissouba won in the second round over Bernard Kolilas, the leader of the Mouvement Congolais pour la Democratie et le Diveloppment Integral (MCDDI), with 61 percent of the vote.
A UPADS-led government, with Stiphane Maurice Bongho-Nouarra as Prime Minister, was appointed after Lissouba took office. However, the PCT withdrew from the pro-Lissouba alliance and joined the opposition after it received only three ministerial positions in the government, thus breaking the slim parliamentary majority. On October 31, 1992, the Union for Democratic Renewal-led opposition coalition and the PCT defeated Bongho-Nouarra's government in a no-confidence vote. Lissouba consequently dissolved the National Assembly and called a new election, but public protests forced him to accept the formation of a national unity government dominated by the URD and PCT in the lead-up to the election.
In the 1993 parliamentary election, the Presidential Tendency ("President" in this case meaning Lissouba), of which UPADS was the main component, won a majority of the seats decided in the first round, 62 out of 114, with UPADS itself holding 49 of the 62. But, true to form, the URD and PCT opposition denounced the election as fraudulent and refused to participate in the second round, in which the Presidential Tendency won an additional seven seats. These results of the second round were annulled and when a second round revote was held in October 1993, the Presidential Tendency won only three of the eleven available seats.
Following the June-October 1997 war and the 1998-99 civil conflict, many parties, including UPADS and MCDDI, were left in disarray as their leadership fled the country.
During the presidential election held on 10 March 2002, UPADS took second place but received less than 3 percent of the vote, with Sassou Nguesso the overwhelming victor.
In March 2002, a number of opposition parties, with the notable exceptions of Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS) and the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI), formed a new coalition to contest the upcoming legislative and local elections. This new umbrella of opposition groups was called Convention pour la Démocratie et le Salut/Convention for Democracy and Salvation (CODESA). CODESA was to be led by Andre Milongo. CODESA initially called on the Government to postpone the elections until the security situation in the Pool region had been resolved. Although they boycotted the presidential elections, CODESA did participate in the legislative elections.
In the aftermath of the presidential election, another coalition of opposition parties called “Plural Opposition”, consisting of UPADS, CNDD (National Rally for Democracy and Development) and the PCR (Congolese Renewal Party) amongst others, who boycotted the presidential election said that they would participate in the legislative and local elections. The party claimed that they boycotted the presidential election as transparency was not guaranteed. However, they could deploy representatives to the constituencies in which they had candidates in the upcoming legislative and local elections.
Nevertheless, in May 2002 Lissouba, Kolelas and Yhombi-Opango issued a joint request to their militants to boycott the legislative polls. The three leaders of UPADS, MCDDI and RDD (Rally for Democracy and Development) respectively, stated that the level of transparency had not been met by the poll organisers. However, RDD representatives in Congo reneged on this decision. CODESA vice-president and chairman of the opposition RDD party, Saturin Okabe stated that the leaders in exile had lost touch with the grassroots people on the ground. Members of the MCDDI followed the RDD example, with the then Minister for Mines and Environment rejecting the call for a boycott.
In the parliamentary election held on 26 May and 23 June 2002, UPADS won only 2 out of 137 seats.
By 2007, many of the party leaders had returned from exile, with the notable exception of former President Pascal Lissouba. UPADS broke with the rest of the opposition in deciding to participate in the June 2007 parliamentary election; most other opposition groups boycotted. The party put forward about 50 candidates but won only three of the 46 declared in the first round. Secretary-general of the party Tsaty-Mabiala said that the party would only participate in the second round of the election in July if the electoral rolls were improved, voter registration cards were properly distributed, and the composition of the electoral commissions was changed. He also said that the second round should be delayed to allow time for these things to be done. The election was delayed by two weeks, but the party won only an additional seven seats, bringing its total to 10 seats in the National Assembly. Tsaty-Mabiala denounced the results as fraudulent and that the election was neither transparent nor fair.
Ange Edouard Poungui, then leader of UPADS, was rejected in the presidential election of 2009. Following that election, authorities limited the movement of opposition party representatives. UPADS Secretary-General Tsaty Mabiala and the former prime minister, Ange Edouard Poungui, were subjected to restrictions on their freedom of movement. After the July 2009 presidential election, Ange Edouard Poungui stated that "many of [the UPADS'] activities have been banned" and that security officials had prevented several of the party's meetings from taking place.
On December 30, 2009, Republic of the Congo President Sassou-Nguesso enacted an amnesty for offenses alleged against Lissouba, following the bill's adoption by the National Assembly and Senate. In August 2010, UPADS factions reunited to create a unified party under the direct influence of former President Lissouba’s wife Jocelyne Lissouba.
By July 2008 leaders of the Rassemblement pour la Majoriti Prisidentielle (RMP), which was composed of 82 political parties that support President Sassou-Nguesso, are discussing the need to develop one major political party prior to the 2009 presidential elections, claiming that one strong political party would assure the President's re-election in the first round of voting.
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