Following President Denis Sassou Nguesso's return to power in the June–October 1997 civil war, a National Reconciliation Forum was held in January 1998; at the conclusion of the forum, Koumba was elected as President of the National Transitional Council (CNT), a 75-member body that was to act as the provisional parliament, on 14 January 1998. Although Koumba was a southerner, the CNT was mostly composed of northerners, in line with the political dominance of northerners under Sassou Nguesso. The body, in place from 1998 to 2002, was critically characterized as an "embarrassingly compliant rubber stamp".