Bernard Kolelas

Bernard Bakana Kolélas (12 June 1933 – 13 November 2009) was a Congolese politician and President of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI). Kolélas was a long-time opponent of the single-party rule of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT), and after the introduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s he was one of Congo-Brazzaville's most important political leaders. He placed second in the August 1992 presidential election, behind Pascal Lissouba; subsequently he was Mayor of Brazzaville, the capital, during the mid-1990s, and he briefly served as Prime Minister of Congo-Brazzaville during the 1997 civil war. After rebel forces prevailed in the civil war, he lived in exile for eight years until an amnesty made it possible for him to return; he was then elected to the National Assembly in 2007.

A native of Congo-Brazzaville's Pool Region, Kolélas was born at Moloki, located in the Pool's Kinkala District, in 1933. He attended primary and secondary school in the nearby administrative capital of Brazzaville. Under Fulbert Youlou, who was Congo-Brazzaville's first President, Kolélas worked for a time as Secretary-General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After Youlou was ousted and Alphonse Massemba-Débat took power in August 1963, Kolélas was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs, but he preferred that the post should go to David Charles Ganao and chose not to accept it. Kolélas was arrested in September 1963 and spent one month in detention. He was arrested again in February 1964, but was freed at the request of Prime Minister Pascal Lissouba. He then went into exile across the Congo River in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and founded an opposition newspaper, La Résistance.

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