Clément Miérassa (born 1949?Jeune Afrique, volumes 11–20 (1990) .) is a Congolese politician who has been President of the Congolese Social Democratic Party (PSDC) since 1990. He served in the government of Congo-Brazzaville as Minister of Trade from 1991 to 1992 and as Minister of Industrial Development from 1992 to 1993. Miérassa was also a minor candidate in the 1992 presidential election as well as the 2009 presidential election.
Political career during the 1980s and 1990s Miérassa, an economist and statistician by profession, is an ethnic Téké.John F. Clark, The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo (2008), Lynne Rienner Publishers, page 134. During the single-party rule of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT), Miérassa was Director of the National Management Center (Centre national de gestion, Cenages)."Clément Mierassa", La Lettre du Continent N°568, Africa Intelligence, 9 July 2009 . At the PCT congress held on 27–31 July 1984, he was included on the Secretariat of the PCT Central Committee as Secretary for Management and Economic Activities.Rémy Bazenguissa-Ganga, Les voies du politique au Congo: essai de sociologie historique (1997), Karthala Editions, page 278 . He was the only Téké on the PCT Secretariat at the time, but he was removed from the body at a plenary session of the Central Committee on 24–30 November 1986, when it was decided to reduce the Secretariat from 11 to eight members.Bazenguissa-Ganga, Les voies du politique au Congo, page 287 .
Along with 300 others, Miérassa signed the petition of 7 July 1990, calling on President Denis Sassou Nguesso to convene a national conference for political reform. During the week that followed, the government announced that it had discovered a plot to oust Sassou Nguesso, and Miérassa was arrested, along with Auguste-Célestin Gongarad Nkoua, who had also signed the petition. The alleged coup plot was dubbed the "Téké plot" due to the ethnicity of the alleged conspirators. The government insisted that the arrests were based on involvement in a coup plot and were unrelated to the petition.Sophia Mappa, Développer par la démocratie?: injonctions occidentales et exigences planétaires (1995), pages 329–330, note 5 .Patrice Yengo, La guerre civile du Congo-Brazzaville, 1993–2002: "chacun aura sa part" (2006), pages 55–56 .
Miérassa spent only a few weeks in jail; on 14 August 1990, President Sassou Nguesso granted him an amnesty, along with other political prisoners, to mark the 27th anniversary of the 1963 revolution.Bazenguissa-Ganga, Les voies du politique au Congo: essai de sociologie historique, page 396 . He then openly opposed the PCT regime,Bazenguissa-Ganga, Les voies du politique au Congo, page 438 . founding a new political party, the PSDC. He applied to the Ministry of Territorial Administration for legal recognition of the PSDC on 30 September 1990.Gaston-Jonas Kouvibidila, Histoire du multipartisme au Congo-Brazzaville: La marche à rebours, 1940–1991 (2000), page 215 . According to Miérassa, the PSDC was the fourth party (excluding the PCT) to register with the government.Africa Research Bulletin, volumes 26–27 (1990), page 9,866.
At the conclusion of the February–June 1991 National Conference, Miérassa was appointed as Minister of Trade and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in the transitional government of Prime Minister André Milongo;Bazenguissa-Ganga, Les voies du politique au Congo, page 399 . he remained in that post until 1992.
Miérassa announced on 11 May 1992 that he would stand as the PSDC candidate in the August 1992 presidential election.Gaston-Jonas Kouvibidila, Histoire du multipartisme au Congo-Brazzaville: Les débuts d'une crise attendue, 1992–1993 (2000), page 144 . He attracted little support in the election, placing tenth with 0.67% of the vote.Fabrice Weissman, Élection présidentielle de 1992 au Congo: Entreprise politique et mobilisation électorale (1993), page 72 .Mubuma Guma-Kanh'a Sheri, Partis et familles de partis au Congo-Brazzaville (2006), page 265 .Kouvibidila, Les débuts d'une crise attendue, page 153 . He received 4.8% of the vote in Plateaux Department, but in every other part of the country his score was negligible.Dieter Nohlen, Michael Krennerich, and Bernhard Thibaut, Elections in Africa: A Data Handbook (1999), page 274. Subsequently, he and the PSDC supported Bernard Kolélas, the candidate of the Congolese Movement for Democracy and Integral Development (MCDDI), in the second round of the election, but Kolélas was defeated by Pascal Lissouba, the candidate of the Pan-African Union for Social Democracy (UPADS). The MCDDI, the PSDC, and five other parties then formed the Union for Democratic Renewal (URD) opposition coalition on 27 August 1992.Joachim Emmanuel Goma-Thethet, "Alliances in the political and electoral process in the Republic of Congo 1991–97", in Liberal Democracy and Its Critics in Africa: Political Dysfunction and the Struggle for Social Progress (2005), ed. Tukumbi Lumumba-Kasongo, Zed Books, page 111.
After Lissouba took office as President, the Congolese Labour Party (PCT), which had briefly supported him, defected to the opposition.John F. Clark, "Congo: Transition and the Struggle to Consolidate", in Political Reform in Francophone Africa (1997), ed. John F. Clark and David E. Gardinier, pages 72–75 and note 45. Together, the URD and PCT controlled a majority of seats in the National Assembly, and they sought the appointment of Kolélas, the main opposition leader, as Prime Minister. Miérassa met with Lissouba on 9 November 1992 to request that he appoint Kolélas. However, Lissouba was unwilling to do so, preferring to instead dissolve the National Assembly later in November.Patrick Quantin, "Congo: Transition démocratique et conjoncture critique", in Transitions démocratiques africaines: dynamiques et contraintes (1990-1994) (1997), eds. Jean-Pascal Daloz and Patrick Quantin, Karthala Editions, page 169 . His decision provoked a political crisis that was resolved through the formation of an opposition-dominated power-sharing government, led by Prime Minister Claude Antoine Dacosta. In Dacosta's government, which was appointed on 25 December 1992, Miérassa was included as Minister of Industrial Development, Fishing, and Crafts.Africa Research Bulletin: Political, Social, and Cultural Series, volume 30 (1993), page 10,847.Kouvibidila, Les débuts d'une crise attendue, page 249 .
By assuaging the URD–PCT coalition, the Dacosta government was intended to stabilize the political situation and produce the appropriate conditions for the organization of an early parliamentary election, which was held in May 1993. Nevertheless, the election proved to be extremely controversial; the pro-Lissouba coalition officially prevailed in the first round of the election, leading the URD–PCT coalition to denounce the results as fraudulent and boycott the second round. On 10 June 1993, four days after the second round was held, Miérassa asked the Supreme Court to clarify legal issues surrounding the election. His query produced a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, which judged that the release of the first round results and the organization of the second round were both illegal. Lissouba nevertheless appointed a new government based on his parliamentary majority, but the URD–PCT coalition refused to accept it. The controversy produced an extended period of political violence; although the second round was held over again on 3 October 1993, the violence continued well into 1994, and about 2,000 people were killed.
On 10 June 1997, a few days after the outbreak of the 1997 civil war, Miérassa was arrested by forces loyal to President Lissouba. He was reportedly tortured in the Diata section of Brazzaville and nearly executed before an order to the contrary arrived from higher command."Entre arbitraire et impunité : les droits de l'homme au Congo-Brazzaville" , Congolese Human Rights Observatory, April 1998 .
Political career, 2000–2008 Forces loyal to Sassou Nguesso prevailed in the civil war, ousting Lissouba in October 1997. Miérassa continued to lead his political party, the PSDC, in the years that followed. On 24 February 2007, the PSDC called for the establishment of an independent national electoral commission that would be fully empowered to oversee the June 2007 parliamentary election. It also called for electoral preparations to be conducted on a consensual basis, with the input of all parties, and it called for politicians to "reject the logic of war"."Législatives 2007. Le Parti social démocrate congolais recommande la mise en place d'une commission nationale électorale indépendante" , Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 28 February 2007 .
Miérassa participated in a meeting of opposition parties on 23 March 2007; at the meeting, the parties issued a statement in favor of the establishment of an independent and fully empowered electoral commission. Miérassa was designated to head a technical committee that was charged with collecting opinions on the idea from parties in the opposition as well as parties supporting Sassou Nguesso; those opinions were to be presented to the government for its consideration."L'opposition réclame une commission indépendante" , Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 27 March 2007 . Alongside other opposition leaders, Miérassa participated in a May 2007 opposition rally in Brazzaville demanding the creation of an independent electoral commission prior to the election and threatening to boycott the vote otherwise.Guillaume Ondzé, "Le collectif des partis de l'opposition menace de boycotter les législatives" , Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 13 May 2007 .
Continuing to press their demand for a new electoral commission, Miérassa and various other opposition leaders met on 25 May 2007 and called for the people to boycott the election if their demand was not met. They emphasized that a law updating the electoral code had already been passed by Parliament, but had not yet been promulgated by President Sassou Nguesso, and they criticized Sassou Nguesso for calling an election that would be held under the terms of an outdated law.Roger Ngombé, "Les partis de l'opposition optent pour le boycott pacifique des scrutins législatifs des 24 juin et 22 juillet prochains" , Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 28 May 2007 .
At the time of the June 2007 parliamentary election, Miérassa was President of the Collective of Parties and Political Associations of the Opposition and Center. Acting on his behalf, Ambroise Hervé Malonga brought a case before the Constitutional Court requesting that the Court annul Sassou Nguesso's decree calling the election on the grounds that it was unconstitutional. On 22 June 2007, two days prior to the election, the Court rejected the case.Roger Ngombé, "La Cour constitutionnelle rejette cinq recours sur les élections législatives", Les Dépêches de Brazzaville, 23 June 2007 .