31 Facts About Omar Bongo

Omar Bongo headed the single-party regime of the PDG until 1990, when, faced with public pressure, he was forced to introduce multi-party politics into Gabon.

The youngest of twelve siblings, Omar Bongo was born Albert-Bernard Omar Bongo on 30 January 1935 in Lewai, French Equatorial Africa, a town of the Haut-Ogooue province in what is southeastern Gabon near the border with the Republic of the Congo.

Omar Bongo began his political career after Gabon's independence in 1960, rapidly rising through a succession of positions under President Leon M'ba.

Omar Bongo worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a time, and he was named Assistant Director of the Presidential Cabinet in March 1962; he was named Director seven months later.

In 1964, during the only coup attempt in 20th-century Gabon, M'ba was kidnapped and Omar Bongo was held in a military camp in Libreville, though M'ba was restored to power two days later.

Omar Bongo was then appointed Minister of Information and Tourism, initially on an interim basis, then formally holding the position in August 1966.

Omar Bongo was in effective control of Gabon since November 1966 during M'ba's long illness.

Omar Bongo became President on 2 December 1967, following the death of M'ba four days earlier, and was installed by de Gaulle and influential French leaders.

In March 1968 Omar Bongo decreed Gabon to be a one-party state and changed the name of the Gabonese Independence Party, the Bloc Democratique Gabonais, to the Parti Democratique Gabonais.

Omar Bongo was eventually successful in consolidating power again, with most of the major opposition leaders being either co-opted by being given high-ranking posts in the government or bought off, ensuring his comfortable re-election in 1998.

In 2003, Omar Bongo secured a change in the Constitution allowing him to seek re-election as many times as he wanted, and changing the Presidential term to seven years, up from five.

On 27 November 2005 Omar Bongo won a seven-year term as president, receiving 79.2 percent of the vote, comfortably ahead of his four challengers.

Omar Bongo was sworn in for another seven-year term on 19 January 2006 and remained president until his death in 2009.

In 1964 when renegade soldiers arrested him in Libreville and kidnapped president M'ba, French paratroopers rescued the abducted president and Omar Bongo, restoring them to power.

Omar Bongo became Vice President in 1966 after what was effectively an interview and subsequent approval by de Gaulle in 1965 in Paris.

French president Valery Giscard d'Estaing claimed that Omar Bongo helped bankroll Jacques Chirac's campaign in the 1981 presidential election.

In 2009, Omar Bongo spent his last months in a major row with France over the French inquiry.

Gabon under Omar Bongo was described in 2008 by the UK's Guardian newspaper:.

When Omar Bongo won the second presidential elections held in 1998, similar controversy raged over his victory.

Omar Bongo then rejected offers for a senior post after the 2001 legislative elections.

In 1986, Omar Bongo's image was boosted abroad when he received the Dag Hammarskjold Peace Prize for efforts to resolve the Chad-Libya border conflict.

On 7 May 2009, the Gabonese Government announced that Omar Bongo had temporarily suspended his official duties and taken time off to mourn his wife and rest in Spain.

On 7 June 2009, unconfirmed reports quoting French media and citing sources "close to the French government" reported that Omar Bongo had died in Spain of complications from advanced cancer.

Omar Bongo's death was eventually confirmed by Gabonese Prime Minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong, who said in a written statement that Bongo had died of a heart attack shortly before 12:30 GMT on 8 June 2009.

Omar Bongo's body was then flown to Franceville, the main town in the southeastern province of Haut-Ogooue, where he was born, where he was buried in a private family burial on 18 June 2009.

Omar Bongo added Ondimba as a surname on 15 November 2003 in recognition of his father, Basile Ondimba, who died in 1942.

Omar Bongo divorced her in 1987, after which she went on to launch a music career under a new name, Patience Dabany.

Omar Bongo then married Edith Lucie Sassou-Nguesso, nearly 30 years his junior, in 1989.

Edith Lucie Omar Bongo died on 14 March 2009 in Rabat, Morocco, four days after her 45th birthday, after undergoing treatment for several months.

Omar Bongo was buried on 22 March 2009 in the family cemetery in the northern town of Edou, in her native Congo.

Omar Bongo was referenced in Robert Altman's 1983 offbeat comedy OC.