Omar Bongo

Omar Bongo, born in 1935, president of Gabon (1967- ) and Africa’s longest serving head of state. Born Albert-Bernard in the village of Lewaï in southeastern Gabon, Bongo was educated in Brazzaville, the Republic of the Congo, and served in the French air force from 1958 to 1960, the year Gabon became independent of French colonial rule. He joined the Gabon ministry of foreign affairs in 1960, and in 1962 he was named assistant director of President Léon Mba's cabinet, then subsequently his chief of staff and his defense minister. In 1966 Mba, who was terminally ill, created the office of vice president to ensure Bongo's succession. Bongo took office as vice president in 1967. When Mba died that same year, Bongo assumed the presidency.

In 1968 Bongo declared Gabon a single-party state, assuming the post of secretary general of the newly created Gabonese Democratic Party. The sole candidate, Bongo swept the 1973 and 1979 presidential elections. In 1973 Bongo announced his conversion to Islam, changing his first name to Omar. Though Bongo was relatively permissive of dissent within the party, he was less tolerant of outside agitators, as evidenced by his 1982 decision to impose harsh sentences on members of a nonviolent opposition protest group. Bongo encouraged foreign investment, and the stability of the government, combined with Gabon's mineral wealth (primarily petroleum and uranium), succeeded in bringing in a fair amount of foreign, particularly French, assistance and investment. Bongo has been accused of financial extravagance, including driving the country into debt in preparation for the 1977 Organization of African Unity (OAU) conference held in Gabon; constructing the massive Trans-Gabon rail system; and building a presidential palace at an estimated cost of $30 million.

In response to a coup plot discovered among the presidential guard in 1989, Bongo agreed to enact sweeping reforms including the creation of a national senate, decentralization of the budgetary process, and freedom of assembly and press. Bongo officially legalized opposition parties in 1991 and created a transitional government, the Gabonese Social Democratic Grouping. This government oversaw the introduction of a new constitution providing for a multiparty system. Bongo was reelected in 1993, 1998, and 2005.