Justin Lekoundzou

Justin Lekoundzou Itihi Ossetoumba (1941 – 25 November 2021) was a Congolese politician. He was a founding member of the Congolese Labour Party (PCT), and during the PCT's single-party rule he held important party and government positions in the 1970s and 1980s. He served in the government again from 1997 to 2002 and was elected to the National Assembly of Congo-Brazzaville in 2002.

Political career Lekoundzou was born in Boundji, located in the Cuvette Region of northern French Congo. Under Marien Ngouabi, he was included on the five-member Executive Committee of the ruling National Revolutionary Council (CNR) as President of the Organization Commission on 21 June 1969. When the PCT was founded in December 1969, he became a member of its Political Bureau and was assigned responsibility for state enterprises; he remained on the Political Bureau until December 1971. Lekoundzou was then Minister of Industry, Mines, and Tourism from December 1971 to 30 August 1973. He was also director of the Pointe-Noire oil refinery for a time.

In 1979 Lekoundzou was again elected to the PCT Political Bureau; at that point the body consisted of ten members, and he was assigned responsibility for planning and the economy. until he was instead appointed Minister of Rural Development on 21 August 1987; he held the latter post until he was replaced in the government named on 13 August 1989. Also in 1989, he was assigned responsibility for organization in the PCT Political Bureau and became the regime's second-ranking figure, under President Denis Sassou Nguesso. In the multiparty 1992 parliamentary election, he was elected to the National Assembly as a PCT candidate. After a little more than a year, he was instead appointed Minister to the Presidency in charge of National Defense on 12 January 1999. In the May 2002 parliamentary election, Lekoundzou was elected to the National Assembly as the PCT candidate in Boundji constituency; he received 58.09% of the vote and won the seat in the first round. Following the election, Jacques-Yvon Ndolou was appointed to replace Lekoundzou as Minister to the Presidency in charge of National Defense on 18 August 2002; Ndolou succeeded Lekoundzou in that position on 21 August. Lekoundzou was then chosen as President of the Parliamentary Group of the Presidential Majority on 24 August 2002.

Factionalism and political activities in the 2000s Leading the conservative faction of the PCT, Lekoundzou opposed moves by the reformist faction in the party, led by PCT Secretary-General Ambroise Noumazalaye, to transform it into a broader party in the mid-2000s. In doing so, he was apparently also at odds with President Sassou Nguesso, who favored the reform initiative. Lekoundzou and his supporters dominated the PCT Central Committee, while Noumazalaye and his supporters dominated the Political Bureau; their differing visions for the future of the party produced an extended round of intra-party squabbling. The members of the Presidential Majority Parliamentary Group were critical of the approach employed by Lekoundzou and Tchicaya, however.

Lekoundzou was still in France due to illness when the June 2007 parliamentary election was held, but he nevertheless stood for re-election to the National Assembly as the PCT candidate in Boundji constituency. Although he was unable to campaign,

As part of his opposition to the "renovation" of the PCT, Lekoundzou founded the "Marien Ngouabi and Ethics" Association; this association has had a difficult relationship with the rest of the PCT and the authorities. The association's spokesman, Jean-Pierre Lokénia, was arrested on 6 May 2008, and in response, Lekoundzou—who was ill and being treated in Cotonou, Benin—said that he was considering returning to Congo to take Lokénia's place as a prisoner. His wife, Emilienne Lekoundzou, said that the association was founded only as a means of organizing PCT conservatives and was not hostile to the government; she also said that Lekoundzou had obtained Sassou Nguesso's approval before founding the association. On 17 May 2008, the association held its constitutive general assembly and elected Lekoundzou as Honorary President, entrusted with the guidance of the organization, while Marion Madzimba Ehouango was elected as its Executive President and Lekoundzou's wife was elected as Deputy Secretary-General.

He died in Brazzaville on 25 November 2021.