Jean-François Ntoutoume Emane (born 6 October 1939) is a Gabonese politician who was Prime Minister of Gabon from 23 January 1999 to 20 January 2006. He was Mayor of Libreville, the capital, from 2008 to 2014.
Life and career
Ntoutoume Emane is a member of the Fang ethnic group from Estuaire Province. After working at the Ministry of Finance, He served as Minister of Civil and Commercial Aviation until 1984, then as Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs from 1984 to 1987.
Ntoutoume Emane led negotiations with the opposition in 1994 that resulted in the Paris Accords. He was appointed as Minister of State for the Land-Survey Register, Housing, Lodgings, Urban Affairs, and Spatial Planning in the government of Prime Minister Paulin Obame-Nguema on 28 January 1997. Although he had been passed over for the post of Prime Minister earlier in the 1990s, He won a seat from Libreville as a PDG candidate in the December 2001 parliamentary election. After seven years as prime minister, Ntoutoume Emane was replaced by Jean Eyeghe Ndong after Bongo was sworn in for another term in January 2006.
Ntoutoume Emane won a seat in the December 2006 parliamentary election, but on 31 March 2007 his victory was annulled by the Constitutional Court due to irregularities. New elections for his seat and others with invalidated results were planned, but Ntoutoume Emane decided not to participate in the re-vote, and Gisele Akoghé took his place as the PDG candidate.—headed the PDG list in the 5th arrondissement of Libreville, the capital. In the 5th arrondissement the PDG achieved its best result in Libreville, with 12 out of 16 councillors; however, the party fell short of an overall majority in the city with 42 out of 98 councillors. Ntoutoume Emane was presented by the PDG as its candidate for Mayor of Libreville,
At the PDG's 9th Ordinary Congress in September 2008, Ntoutoume Emane was named as one of two Honorary Vice-Presidents of the PDG.
Reacting to the inauguration of United States President Barack Obama on 20 January 2009, Ntoutoume Emane said the event fulfilled the dream of Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr., and he said that he had read Obama's books. He expressed optimism that Obama "has the ambition and potential to foster a real momentum for development".
After the death of President Bongo on 8 June 2009, Ntoutoume Emane ordered the closure of all nightclubs and bars in Libreville to reflect a spirit of national mourning.
Following local elections held in December 2013, Ntoutoume Emane was succeeded as Mayor by Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda on 10 February 2014. He announced his resignation from the ruling PDG on 2 October 2015 and said that he was creating a new party, the Patriotic and Democratic Movement for the Refoundation of the Republic (Mouvement patriotique et démocratique pour la refondation de la République, MPDR).