Auguste-Célestin Gongarad Nkoua is a Congolese politician and the President of the Patriotic Union for Democracy and Progress (UPDP), a political party. He served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Minister of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry from 1991 to 1992, as Minister of Water and Forests from 1992 to 1993, and again as Minister of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry from 1997 to 2002. Subsequently, he was President of the Economic and Social Council, a state institution, from 2003 to 2009. In 2009, he was appointed as President Denis Sassou Nguesso's Personal Representative for Political Affairs.
Background and 1990s political career
An ethnic Téké, Gongarad Nkoua was a journalist and a printer by profession. Along with 300 others, he signed the petition of 7 July 1990, calling on President Denis Sassou Nguesso to convene a national conference for political reform. In the week that followed, the discovery of a plot—which was dubbed the "Téké plot" due to the ethnicity of the alleged conspirators—to oust Sassou Nguesso was announced, and Gongarad Nkoua was arrested, along with Clement Miérassa, who had also signed the petition.
The arrests followed a police search of Gongarad Nkoua's home, in which the police were said to have found "seditious documents" indicating that Gongarad Nkoua had been preparing a coup plot since November 1987. The government insisted that the arrests were based on involvement in a coup plot and were unrelated to the petition. However, Gongarad Nkoua spent only a few weeks in jail. In a gesture of clemency marking the 27th anniversary of the 1963 revolution, President Sassou Nguesso granted an amnesty to Gongarad Nkoua and other political prisoners on 14 August 1990.
Gongarad Nkoua was a delegate to the February–June 1991 National Conference, which established transitional institutions in preparation for multiparty elections in 1992. At the National Conference, he was one of four candidates for the post of First Vice-president of the Higher Council of the Republic (CSR), which was being set up as the legislature for the 1991–1992 transitional period. After two of the other candidates withdrew, Gongarad Nkoua faced Jean-Michel Bokamba-Yangouma in a third round of voting; he received 331 votes against 491 for Bokamba-Yangouma. Although the necessary quorum of delegates was not reached, Gongarad Nkoua chose to withdraw at that point in favor of Bokamba-Yangouma. He was instead given the post of Minister of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in the transitional government of Prime Minister André Milongo, holding that post until 1992.
Leading his own political party, the UPDP, Gongarad Nkoua stood as a candidate in the August 1992 presidential election. He attracted little support, placing ninth with 0.69% of the vote. He received 6.3% of the vote in Plateaux Region, but in every other region his score was negligible. Subsequently, he and the UPDP supported Bernard Kolélas, the candidate of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI), in the second round of the election, but Kolélas was defeated by Pascal Lissouba, the candidate of the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS). The MCDDI, the UPDP, and five other parties then formed the Union for Democratic Renewal (URD) opposition coalition on 27 August 1992.
After Lissouba took office as president, the Congolese Labour Party (PCT), which had briefly supported him, defected to the opposition. Together with other URD leaders, Gongarad Nkoua signed an alliance between the URD and the PCT in September 1992. That alliance gave the URD and PCT a parliamentary majority, and consequently President Lissouba dissolved the National Assembly in November 1992. His decision provoked a political crisis that was resolved through the formation of an opposition-dominated power-sharing government, led by Prime Minister Claude Antoine Dacosta. In that government, which was appointed on 25 December 1992, Gongarad Nkoua was included as Minister of Water and Forests. The Dacosta government remained in office for six months; it was replaced by Lissouba following the early parliamentary election that was held in May–June 1993.
Lissouba was later ousted by rebel forces loyal to Sassou Nguesso at the end of the June–October 1997 civil war. As President, Sassou Nguesso appointed Gongarad Nkoua to the government as Minister of State for Agriculture and Animal Husbandry on 2 November 1997. After a little more than a year, Gongarad Nkoua was appointed as Minister of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry (without the rank of Minister of State) on 12 January 1999.