Editing Pascal Lissouba (section)

== Political career ==
Initially he was a civil servant, working as a managing director in the Department of Agriculture (1962–63), having returned in 1962.<ref name="Liste des présidents de la République du Congo Brazzaville2014" /> But his abilities advanced him to become Minister of Agriculture, Livestock, Water, and Forestry on 16 August 1963<ref name="Liste des présidents de la République du Congo Brazzaville2014" /> until 1966 and then Prime Minister (1963–66) under President [[Alphonse Massamba-Débat]].<ref name="Pascal Lissouba, le président sortant1997">{{cite web|url=https://www.humanite.fr/node/159816|language=fr|date=9 June 1997|title=Pascal Lissouba, le président sortant|publisher=Humanité}}</ref> He was appointed Minister of State for Planning, then for Agriculture (1968–1969), before being sacked by the government.<ref name="Pascal Lissouba, le président sortant1997" /> Afterwards, he became a genetics professor at the [[Marien Ngouabi University|University of Brazzaville]] (1966–1971) and later director of the Ecole Supérieure des Sciences in 1970.<ref name="Pascal Lissouba, le président sortant1997" /> When Massamba-Débat was overthrown in 1968 Lissouba remained in government under [[Marien Ngouabi]] and although he was suspended from political activity from 1969 to 1971 he was on the Central Committee of the Congolese Workers Party in 1973.

In 1977, he was implicated for involvement in the assassination of Ngouabi and was arrested. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labour in 1977.<ref name="Pascal Lissouba, le président sortant1997" /> He was released in 1979 but had to live in exile in [[France]] from 1979 to 1990. In France, he was a professor of genetics<ref name="Pascal Lissouba, le président sortant1997" /> at the University of Paris and then worked for [[UNESCO]] in Paris and [[Nairobi]]. When President [[Denis Sassou Nguesso]] was forced to move the Congo towards democracy in 1991, Lissouba returned in February 1992<ref name="Pascal Lissouba, le président sortant1997" /> and was elected president in the [[1992 Republic of the Congo presidential election|August 1992 elections]]. He secured 36% of the vote as head of the left-wing [[Pan-African Union for Social Democracy]] (''Union panafricaine pour la démocratie sociale'', UPADS). In the run-off with second-placed [[Bernard Kolelas]], Lissouba got 61% of the vote.