Pierre Ngolo - Political Career

Political Career

Ngolo was born at Etoro, located in the Gamboma District of Plateaux Region. In 1998, he was elected as First Secretary of the National Transitional Council (CNT), which was the transitional parliament. In the May–June 2002 parliamentary election, he was elected to the National Assembly as the PCT candidate in Ongogni constituency, winning the seat in the first round with 99.69% of the vote. After the election, he was chosen as First Secretary of the National Assembly on 10 August 2002. At the African Parliamentary Union's 27th conference, held in Algiers from 27 November to 2 December 2004, Ngolo was Deputy President of the APU/Congo National Group, and he was elected by the conference delegates as Rapporteur of the APU's Executive Bureau.

In the 2007 parliamentary election, Jean-Claude Gakosso replaced Ngolo as the PCT candidate in Ongogni; although there were rumors of rivalry between the two, Gakosso and Ngollo appeared together when Gakosso announced his candidacy, and Ngolo instead stood as the PCT candidate in the Ouenzé I constituency of Brazzaville. Ngolo won the Ouenzé I seat in the first round with 54.30% of the vote, and he was subsequently re-elected as First Secretary of the National Assembly on 4 September 2007, receiving 122 votes from the 129 deputies who voted. He was additionally assigned responsibility for the National Assembly's relations with the African Parliamentary Union.

In light of the fact that Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso had been designated as President of the Economic and Monetary Community of Central African States (CEMAC), Ngolo was correspondingly elected as President of the CEMAC Inter-Parliamentary Commission at a session held in Malabo on 17–19 February 2010.

In early 2011, Ngolo was designated as First Rapporteur of the Preparatory Committee for the PCT's Sixth Extraordinary Congress. At the Sixth Extraordinary Congress, held in Brazzaville in July 2011, Ngolo was elected as Secretary-General of the PCT. His election as Secretary-General was considered surprising. It had been widely expected that the post would go to a more prominent figure, but Sassou Nguesso chose Ngolo, reportedly viewing him as a skilled organizer and as relatively uncontroversial. He was reportedly viewed as a "man of compromise": "an open conservative, anxious to preserve the identity of the party, while understanding the need for change".

A month after his election, Ngolo officially took office as PCT Secretary-General on 25 August 2011, succeeding Interim Secretary-General Isidore Mvouba.

Ngolo's constituency, the first constituency of Ouenzé, was among those areas of Brazzaville affected by the March 2012 explosions at a munitions dump, which killed hundreds of people. As a consequence, voting was not held in his constituency, as well as two other constituencies, at the time of the July–August 2012 parliamentary election. On 17 August 2012, the parliamentary terms of Ngolo and the other two deputies were extended by the Constitutional Court until such time as voting could be held. The ruling was in line with a constitutional provision allowing for such extensions when voting could not be properly held due to "exceptionally serious circumstances".

When the deputies met to elect the National Assembly's bureau for its new parliamentary term on 5 September 2012, Ngolo was not re-elected to his post as First Secretary of the National Assembly. He was officially succeeded by Gabriel Valère Eteka Yemet, who had been elected to replace him, at a handover ceremony on 11 September 2012.