Léon M’ba

Léon M’ba (born February 1902, Libreville, French Congo [now in Gabon]—died Nov. 28, 1967, Paris, Fr.) was the first president of independent Gabon, whose regime, after an abortive 1964 coup, came to depend on French government and business support.

Considered a troublemaker by the French colonial administration before World War II and even exiled by it from 1933 to 1946, M’ba entered politics shortly after his return to Gabon. In 1952 he was elected to the Territorial Assembly, and in 1956 he became mayor of the Gabon capital, Libreville. After the victory of his party, the Gabon Democratic Bloc, in the important 1957 elections, M’ba was made vice president of the Gabon Executive Council (the highest post then held by an African). He soon afterward became council president and prime minister of the Republic of Gabon, which had opted to remain within the French community in the referendum of September 1958.

By the time Gabon gained independence two years later, M’ba was already coming under attack from members of his own party as being too conservative and pro-French, and he imprisoned several of them. He was elected president in 1961 and became increasingly paternalistic and authoritarian, stressing both the need for unity and Gabon’s dependence on France. In early 1964, just before an election, he unilaterally decided to establish a one-party regime; in the resulting military uprising he was momentarily captured by the Gabonese army. French troops, however, restored him to power. With more tacit French backing, he remained president until his death in 1967.