Pascaline Bongo Ondimba

Pascaline Mferri Bongo Ondimba (born 10 April 1956 ) is a Gabonese politician. Under her father, President Omar Bongo, she was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1994 and Director of the Cabinet of the President from 1994 to 2009.

Background and political career Born at Franceville, Gabon, in 1956, and entered the government as Minister of Foreign Affairs in June 1991. President Bongo had entrusted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to close relatives since 1981. In her first address to the United Nations later in 1991, she praised the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait and expressed concern over violence in South Africa. She welcomed reforms in South Africa, but also stressed that further steps were needed to fully eliminate the apartheid system. Noting the collapse of socialism in the Warsaw Pact countries, she said that the world was witnessing rapid change, but she emphasized Gabon's view that the economic gulf between developed and developing countries—the global "north" and "south"—was "the real problem". He appointed Pascaline as Director of the Presidential Cabinet at that time. In the years that followed, Pascaline and Ali reportedly had a contentious relationship. She was removed from office on 2 October 2019.

In October 2023, the Paris prosecutor's office announced that Pascaline Bongo will be tried in early 2024 with the company Egis Route, a subsidiary of the French construction group Egis, and five other people for suspicion of corruption linked to public contracts in Gabon in 2010 and 2011.

Personal life

Pascaline Bongo dated singer Bob Marley from 1980–81, and talked about the relationship in the documentary film Marley (2012).

Pascaline Bongo had a relationship with Jean Ping during the late 1980s and early 1990s; the two had two children. However, Ping was already married and was unwilling to divorce his wife.