Pierre Mamboundou

Pierre Mamboundou (6 November 1946 – 15 October 2011) was a Gabonese politician. He was President of the Union of the Gabonese People (UPG), an opposition party in Gabon, from 1989 to 2011.

Mamboundou was born in Mouila. He headed the commercial agency of the Office of Posts and Telecommunications from 1978 to 1979, and he worked at the Agency of Cultural and Technical Cooperation (ACCT) from 1979 to 1989; he was the ACCT's Director of External Relations from 1985 to 1989 and was based in Paris. In Paris on 14 July 1989, he announced the foundation of the UPG, an opposition party. After being accused of organizing an October 1989 coup plot, he was convicted in absentia and sentenced to ten years in prison. He denied the accusation and said that the plot was an invention of the government. Mamboundou was also dismissed from his post at the ACCT in 1989.

President Omar Bongo said in January 1990 that Mamboundou was sending political leaflets opposing his government into Gabon. In France, where Mamboundou was living, Mamboundou's lawyer requested that he be designated as a political refugee by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons on 23 February 1990. He was nevertheless arrested at his home in Chelles, Seine-et-Marne on 28 February 1990 on the grounds that he was a threat to public order due to his activities, and he was flown to Senegal on the same day. On 18 October 1993, he announced his plans to return to Gabon within two days in order to stand as a candidate in the December 1993 presidential election. He subsequently returned to Gabon from Dakar on 31 October 1993, but he was unable to return prior to the end of the period for the submission of candidacies and therefore could not run in the presidential election. Despite his earlier in absentia conviction, which had not been lifted, he was not arrested upon his return.

Mamboundou was elected as Mayor of Ndendé in 1996, and he was also elected to the National Assembly in the December 1996 parliamentary election as a UPG candidate in Ngounié Province. During the parliamentary term that followed, he was President of the United Democratic Forces Parliamentary Group.

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