Ange-Félix Patassé

Who is Ange-Félix Patassé?

Ange-Félix Patassé was born in Paoua in northern Ubangi-Shari. He rose through the civil service and served as Prime Minister under Emperor Bokassa in the 1970s before falling out with the regime and moving into opposition politics. He founded the Mouvement pour la Libération du Peuple Centrafricain (MLPC), which became one of the country's leading opposition parties during the transition to multiparty democracy in the early 1990s. In 1993 Patassé won the Central African Republic's first genuinely competitive, multiparty presidential election, and he was re-elected in 1999. His presidency was marked by chronic instability, including multiple army mutinies and coup attempts fueled by unpaid soldiers' wages and regional tensions, which he survived with support from foreign peacekeeping forces at various points. In March 2003, while he was traveling abroad, his former army chief of staff François Bozizé led a coup that removed him from power. Patassé went into exile before eventually returning to the country, and he ran again for the presidency in the 2011 election, in which he was unsuccessful. He died later that year in Douala, Cameroon.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Britannica, "Ange-Félix Patassé" · BBC News, "Obituary: Ange-Félix Patassé" (2011) · Pierre Kalck, Historical Dictionary of the Central African Republic