Ange-Félix Patassé (25 January 1937 – 5 April 2011) was a Central African politician who was president of the Central African Republic from 1993 until 2003, when he was deposed by the rebel leader François Bozizé in the 2003 coup d'état. Patassé was the first president in the CAR's history (since 1960) to be chosen in what was generally regarded as a fairly democratic election (1993), in that it was brought about by donor pressure on President André Kolingba and assisted by the United Nations Electoral Assistance Unit.
He was chosen a second time in a fair election (1999) as well. However, during his first term in office (1993–1999), three military mutinies in 1996–1997 led to increasing conflict between so-called "northerners" (like Patassé) and "southerners" (like his predecessor President André Kolingba). Expatriate mediators and peacekeeping troops were brought in to negotiate peace accords between Patassé and the mutineers and to maintain law and order. During his second term as president, Patassé increasingly lost the support of a number of his long-time allies as well as the French, who had intervened to support him during his first term in office. Patassé was ousted in March 2003 and went into exile in Togo.
Background
Patassé was born in Paoua, the capital of the northwestern province of Ouham Pendé in the colony of Ubangi-Shari in French Equatorial Africa, and he belonged to the Sara-Kaba ethnic group which predominates in the region around Paoua. Patassé's father, Paul Ngakoutou, who had served in the Free French military forces during the Second World War and afterwards worked for the colonial administration in the Province of Ouham-Pendé, was a member of the Sara-kaba people and was raised in a small village to the northeast of Boguila. Patassé's mother, Véronique Goumba, belonged to the Kare ethnic group of northwestern Ubangi-Shari. As Patassé spent much of his youth in Paoua he was associated with the Ouham-Pendé province and a number of his most loyal political supporters were ethnic Kaba. After attending school in Ubangi-Shari, Patassé studied in an agricultural institute in Puy-de-Dôme, France, where he received a Technical Baccalaureate which allowed him to enroll in the Superior Academy of Tropical Agriculture in Nogent-sur-Marne, and then in the National Agronomical Institute in Paris. Specializing in zootechnology, he received a diploma from the Center for the Artificial Insemination of Domestic Animals in Rambouillet, France. He finished his studies in Paris in 1959, a year before the independence of the Central African Republic.
Political career 1960s–1970s: Rise to power
Patassé joined the Central African civil service in 1959, shortly before independence. He became an agricultural engineer and agricultural inspector in the Ministry of Agriculture in July 1963, under President David Dacko. In December 1965, Dacko appointed him Director of Agriculture and Minister of Development. In 1966, Jean-Bédel Bokassa took power in a coup d'état. Patassé was the "cousin" of President Bokassa's principal wife, Catherine Denguiadé, and gained the confidence of the new president, serving in almost all the governments formed by Bokassa. After Bokassa's creation of the Council for the Central African Revolution (in imitation of the Libyan Revolutionary Command Council), Patassé was named a member of the Council of the Revolution with the rank of Prime Minister in charge of Posts and Communications, Tourism, Water, Forests, Hunting and Fishing, as well as Custodian of the Seats of State (4 September 1976 – 14 December 1976). During this period Patassé followed Bokassa in becoming a convert to Islam for a few months, and changed his name to Mustafa Patassé. After Bokassa became Emperor Bokassa I, Patassé was named Prime Minister and Head of the first Imperial Government. He remained in this position for 2 1/2 years, when a public announcement was made that Patassé had stepped down from office due to health problems. Patassé then left for France, where he remained in exile until the overthrow of Bokassa in September 1979. Shortly before Bokassa's overthrow, Patassé announced his opposition to the Emperor and founded the Front de Libération du Peuple Centrafricain (FLPC; Front for the Liberation of the Central African People).
Emperor Bokassa was overthrown and President David Dacko restored to power by the French in 1979. Dacko ordered Patassé to be put under house arrest. Patassé attempted to escape to Chad, but failed and was arrested again. He was later released due to alleged health problems.
Patassé government (1976–1978) The Patassé government was the first government of the Central African Empire, created immediately after Bokassa crowned himself Emperor. Patassé worked under strict imperial control, with Bokassa holding real power. His government was tasked with managing the transition from republic to empire, implementing imperial reforms, and preparing for the extravagant coronation of 1977. Growing internal tensions and Bokassa’s suspicions led to Patassé’s dismissal in July 1978, after which Henri Maïdou replaced him as Prime Minister. Which dismissed the cabinet. The cabinet was succeeded by the Henri Maïdou Cabinet. Cabinet Ange-Félix Patassé — Prime Minister Jean-Bédel Bokassa Jr. — Minister of Defense (nominal, symbolic role for the heir) André Zama — Acting Minister of Defense / Military Affairs (real operational authority) François Gueret — Minister of Justice Michel Adama Tamboux — Minister of Foreign Affairs Charles Bodinga — Minister of Health Élie Doté — Minister of National Education Albert Bébembélé — Minister of Finance Nicolas Mandaba — Minister of Agriculture Jean-Pierre Lebanga — Minister of Public Works Prosper Danionga — Minister of Information Simon Ngango — Minister of Interior
1980s: Return to politics and further exile
Patassé returned to the CAR to present himself as a candidate for the presidential election of 15 March 1981, after which it was announced that Patassé gained 38% of the votes and thus came in second, after President Dacko. Patassé denounced the election results as rigged. Several months later, on 1 September 1981, General André Kolingba overthrew Dacko in a bloodless coup and took power, after which he forbade political activity in the country. Patassé felt obliged to leave the Central African Republic to live in exile once again, but on 27 February 1982, Patassé returned to the Central African Republic and participated in an unsuccessful coup d'état attempt against General Kolingba with the help of a few military officers such as General François Bozizé. Four days later, having failed to gain the support of the military forces, Patassé went in disguise to the French Embassy to seek refuge. After heated negotiations between President Kolingba and the French, Patassé was allowed to leave for exile in Togo. After remaining abroad for almost a decade, of which several years were spent in France, Patassé returned to the Central African Republic in 1992 to participate in presidential elections as head of the Movement for the Liberation of the Central African People (MLPC). The donor community, with the fall of the Soviet Union, saw no need to prop up the Kolingba regime and so had pressed for change helping to organize elections with some help from the UN Electoral Assistance Unit and with logistical support from the French army.
First presidential term (1993–1999) After the Kolingba regime sabotaged a first set of elections in 1992, a second set of elections was held. On the second round on 19 September 1993, Patassé came in first with 37 percent of the vote, well ahead of his nearest competitors, Kolingba, David Dacko and Abel Goumba. He defeated Goumba in the runoff. Largely thanks to the foreign pressure notably from the US and technical support from the UN, for the first time the elections were fair and democratic. Patassé thus became the first president in the nation's history to gain power by such means. When he took office on 22 October 1993; it marked the first (and to date, only) time in the country's history that a sitting government peacefully surrendered power to the opposition. During Patassé's first six-year term in office (22 October 1993 – 1999), the economy appeared to improve a little as the flow of donor money started up again following the elections and the apparent legitimacy they brought.
Patassé had the support of most of his own Sara-Kaba people, the largest ethno-linguistic group in the Central African Republic, as well as the Souma people of his "hometown" of Paoua and the Kare people of his mother. Most of his supporters lived in the most populous northwestern savanna regions of the CAR, and thus came to be called "northerners", whereas all previous presidents were from either the forest or Ubangi River regions in the south, and so their supporters came to be called "southerners". As a populist, Patassé promoted himself as a candidate who represented a majority of the population against the privileges of southerners who held a disproportionate number of lucrative jobs in the public and parastatal sectors of the economy. Most notably, the Yakoma people had already obtained access to European education in the colonial era and were systematically favored under the presidency of Kolingba. As President, Patassé lowered the pay of the Yakoma-dominated army corps (which he distrusted), and conversely created a well-paid presidential guard and other militias mainly composed of "northerners".
This reversal of a long-standing ethnic inequality heightened tensions in the country and quickly pitted officers and soldiers against Patassé. This led to three consecutive mutinies by badly-paid soldiers in 1996–1997. Destruction of buildings and property during these rebellions had an adverse impact on the economy. The first mutiny began in May 1996. Patassé's government successfully regained control with the help of François Bozizé and the French, but his obvious dependency on the French, against whom he had regularly railed, reduced his standing further. His subsequent use of Libyan troops as a body guard did nothing to help his reputation, either locally or with the donor community and the US even closed their embassy temporarily. The last and most serious mutiny continued until early 1997, when a semblance of order was restored after the signing of the Bangui Agreements, and with the help of troops from Burkina Faso, Chad, Gabon, Mali, Senegal, and Togo. The Security Council of the United Nations approved a mission for peace, MINURCA, in 1998. MINURCA was made up of 1,350 African soldiers. These mutinies greatly increased the tension between "northerners" and "southerners" in the CAR and thus polarized society to a greater extent than before.
Second presidential term (1999–2003) and coup attempts
In the presidential election of September 1999, Patassé won easily, defeating former presidents Kolingba and Dacko. He won in the first round with about 51.6% of the vote. Opposition leaders accused the elections of being rigged. During his second term, Patassé became increasingly unpopular. In 2000, his former prime minister Jean-Luc Mandaba and his son Hervé both died within a short span of time, which led to accusations from Mandaba's family and the youth movement Flambeau centrafricain (FLAC) that Patassé had them poisoned because he suspected them of planning a coup. In May 2001, a failed coup attempt against Patassé took place, in which Kolingba and possibly Bozizé were involved. Both of these officers left the country to evade trial: Kolingba for Uganda, Bozizé for Chad along with military forces that were loyal to him."Regional efforts underway to calm tensions" , IRINnews.org, 28 November 2001.