Ali Bongo Ondimba member of political party Gabonese Democratic Party
Ali Bongo Ondimba (born Alain Bernard Bongo; 9 February 1959), sometimes known as Ali Bongo, is a Gabonese politician who is the third and current president of Gabon since October 2009.
Ali Bongo is the son of Omar Bongo, who was President of Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009. During his father's presidency, he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1989 to 1991, represented Bongoville as a Deputy in the National Assembly from 1991 to 1999, and was Minister of Defense from 1999 to 2009. After his father's death, he won the 2009 Gabonese presidential election. He was reelected in 2016, in elections marred by numerous irregularities, arrests, human rights violations and post-election protests and violence. Bongo is also president of the Gabonese Democratic Party.Education and music career
Bongo was educated at a private school in Neuilly, France, and then studied law at the Sorbonne. In 2018, he received an honorary doctorate of law degree from Wuhan University in China. In 1977, he released a funk album, A Brand New Man, produced by Charles Bobbit.Early political career
After graduating from his law course, he entered politics, joining the Gabonese Democratic Party (French: Parti Démocratique Gabonais, abbreviated PDG) in 1981; he was elected to the PDG Central Committee at the party's Third Extraordinary Congress in March 1983. Subsequently, he was his father's Personal Representative to the PDG and in that capacity he entered the PDG Political Bureau in 1984. He was then elected to the Political Bureau at an ordinary party congress in September 1986.Bongo held the post of High Personal Representative of the President of the Republic from 1987 to 1989. In 1989, his father appointed him to the government as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, replacing Martin Bongo. He was considered a reformist within the ruling PDG in the early 1990s. In the 1990 parliamentary election (the first election after the introduction of multiparty politics), he was elected to the National Assembly as a PDG candidate in Haut-Ogooué Province. After two years as Foreign Minister, a 1991 constitutional amendment setting a minimum age of 35 for ministers resulted in his departure from the government.Following his departure from the government, Bongo took up his seat as a Deputy in the National Assembly in 1991. In February 1992, he organized a visit by American pop singer Michael Jackson to Gabon.
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