Pan-African Union for Social Democracy

The Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (French: Union panafricaine pour la démocratie sociale, UPADS) is a political party in the Republic of the Congo headed by Pascal Lissouba, who was President from 1992 to 1997. It has been the country's main opposition party since Lissouba's ouster in 1997. Pascal Tsaty-Mabiala has been Secretary-General of UPADS since 2006.

In the 1991–1992 transition to multiparty elections, UPADS was part of the National Alliance for Democracy (AND), which also included the Congolese Labour Party (PCT). In the parliamentary 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 64 seats in the National Assembly. UPADS leader Pascal Lissouba was victorious over Bernard Kolélas, the leader of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI), in the second round of the August 1992 presidential election, winning 61.32% of the vote.

A UPADS-led government, with Stéphane Maurice Bongho-Nouarra as Prime Minister, was appointed after Lissouba took office, but the PCT withdrew from the pro-Lissouba alliance and joined the opposition after it received only three positions in the government, causing the alliance to lose its parliamentary majority. The Union for Democratic Renewal (URD) opposition coalition and the PCT were therefore successful in defeating Bongho-Nouarra's government in a no-confidence vote on October 31, 1992. Lissouba consequently dissolved the National Assembly and called a new election; facing protests about this, he accepted 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, of which UPADS was the main component, won a majority of the seats decided in the first round, 62 out of 114; UPADS itself won 49 out of the 62. The URD and PCT opposition denounced this election as fraudulent and refused to participate in the second round, in which the Presidential Tendency won an additional seven seats; however, these results were cancelled and a second round revote was held in October 1993, in which the Presidential Tendency won only three of the 11 available seats.

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