Denis Sassou-Nguesso

President (1979-92 and 1997 to date)

Date of Birth: 23/11/1943
Place of Birth: Edou, Oyo District

Career: Joined the Congolese Army, 1960; Military Training in Central Africa, Algeria and France, 1961-68; Chief of Congolese airborne troops, 1968; Member of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT), 1970; Minister of Defence, 1975; Acting Head of State, March-April 1977; President of the PCT and Head of State, 1979-1992; President of the Republic of Congo-Brazzaville, 1997 to date.

Commentary: A military man, an M'Bochi from Edu in the north, where he has a 'mystical headquarters' in his mother's village of Oyo in the Cuvette district, Sassou-Nguesso took refuge in Paris from persecution from Pascal Lissouba's militia in 1994.He returned to Congo in 1997. In the 2009 presidential elections he was re-elected for a further seven-year presidential term by a crushing majority, according to the official count. These elections were regarded with scepticism, the European Union did not bother to send election monitors because so little had been done to rectify flaws evident in the 2002 election. The EU representative in Brazzaville, Miguel Amado, pointed out that the official electoral register of 2.2 million people was implausibly high for a country containing only 3.8 mn. people, a high proportion of them youngsters.