Jean Félix-Tchicaya

Jean Félix-Tchicaya was a Congolese politician in the French colony of Middle Congo. He was born in Libreville on November 9, 1903, and was a member of the royal family of the Kingdom of Loango.

In 1945, he was elected as the first deputy for Middle-Congo and the Gabon in the French National Assembly, a seat he retained until the end of the French Fourth Republic. He helped found the Congolese Progressive Party (PPC), a Congolese branch of the African Democratic Rally, in 1946.

He died in Pointe Noire on January 15, 1961, seeing his rival Fulbert Youlou gain power over a newly independent Republic of Congo.

Early life Born at Libreville from the prominent Vili-speaking Congolese Bulolo clan, originally coming from the settlement of Diosso, Jean Félix-Tchicaya studied at the small public school in Libreville.

Louis Mbouyou Portella, his grand father was one of the wealthiest traders of Loango area at that time.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, many people from coastal Congo-Brazzaville moved to Libreville and Grand-Bassam. Moreover, until independence in 1960, Gabonese and Congolese intellectuals and white collar workers regularly moved back and forth from Brazzaville to Libreville.

Thus, Tchicaya father's like many of his immigrants fellows, worked as a tailor, - a noble work at that time among Vili people like tusk carver-.

In 1918, according to his intellectual ability, Tchicaya received a scholarship to study at Ecole William Ponty in Gorée Island, near from Dakar, the most highly regarded public school in all of French West and Equatorial Africa.

Once completed his schooling in 1921 along with his cousin Hervé-Mapako Gnali (Mambou Aimée Gnali father's), becoming the first Congolese teachers, he returned to Libreville to teach classes at a primary school. Following his grand father advice, he left this position in 1924 to join the giant Congo Ocean Railway project.

In the process of being demobilized from the French colonial army, Jean-Félix Tchicaya is contacted by the notables of Pointe-Noire, by telegram, to apply for the territory of Gabon-Middle Congo.

On December 7, 1945, after a second round, Jean Félix-Tchicaya was elected member of the assembly, edging out Jean-Hilaire Aubame, Jacques Opangault, Issembé and François-Moussa Simon.

Congolese Progressive Party Foundation of the party In 1946, Jean Félix-Tchicaya, slayer of Colonialism at the French National Assembly, where he sits throughout the 4th Republic, founded his party the CPP (Congolese Progressive Party), Congolese section of the African Democratic Rally, close to the French Communist Party, with young executives such as Emmanuel Damongo-Dadet, Joseph Pouabou or Robert Stéphane Tchitchelle. The latter, the right-hand of the founder, will be the leader of the party in Pointe-Noire and Kouilou. He rallies all the railroaders of the CFCO (Congo-Ocean railway).

Jean Félix-Tchicaya is the vice-Chairman of the Coordinating Committee for the very recent African Democratic Rally (RDA) of his friend Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

The talisman of the party was the leopard in reference to the affiliation of Tchicaya to the reigning family of the Kingdom of Loango.

Split of the party and end of reign In November 1955, after the budgetary session of the Territorial Assembly, a dissent appeared within the CPP. In the course of a confab held in Pointe-Noire, in the presence of the leader Tchicaya, in the Mpita property of Germain Bicoumat, a notable Vili man, several territorial councillors resign from the party. They reproach Tchicaya for its lack of consultation in some decisions (appointment of elected officials to positions of responsibility, the dissimilarity of CPP in the RDA following the accession of Fulbert Youlou).

These are the elected representatives of the Niari department: Simon-Pierre Kikhounga-Ngot, Auguste Nzoungou, Raymond Ango; Of the elected representatives of the Pool department: Prosper Decorad, Louis Vouama, Toundé Néré, Jean Maniaki, Nicolas Bakala and the elected member of the Kouilou department: Robert Stéphane Tchitchelle.

Tchitchellé joined Abbé Youlou to establish the UDDIA (Democratic Union for the defence of African interests). The latter party, by mobilizing the laris politically, takes political leadership on the CPP. and allowed Stéphane Tchitchelle to become the first indigenous mayor of Pointe-Noire, before occupying several ministerial positions.

All these events will mark the eclipse of Jean Félix-Tchicaya and his party the CPP after more than ten years of reign without discontinuing on the political chessboard.