he was dismissed as Minister of Civil Service and Labor by President Idriss Déby on May 17, 1994. In the 1996 presidential election, Kamougué stood as a candidate, taking second place in the first round on June 2 with 12.39% of the vote; in the second round, held on July 3, he was defeated by President Déby, taking 30.91% of the vote compared to Déby's 69.09%. Following the 1997 parliamentary election, Kamougué's party, the Union for Renewal and Democracy, reached an agreement with Déby's ruling Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS) on May 8, 1997, according to which Kamougué would become President of the National Assembly. He was elected to that position on May 9. Kamougué ran again in the May 2001 presidential election. In March 2001, he was one of three presidential candidates who called for the election to be delayed and for the international community to delay funding for the election, describing it as a "masquerade" and a "travesty". The URD decided against boycotting the election and nominated Kamougué as its candidate at an ordinary party congress in early April. Kamougué accused Déby and the MPS of running Chad "in a catastrophic and disastrous manner". In the election, which took place on schedule, he took fourth place and 6.02% of the vote. He remained President of the National Assembly until 2002. In the April 2002 parliamentary election, he was re-elected to the National Assembly as an URD candidate from Sarh constituency in Barh Köh Department. It was initially reported that Kamougué was one of the opposition leaders arrested during a battle between government forces and rebels in N'Djamena in early February 2008. On February 16, 2008, Minister of Communications Hourmadji Moussa Doumgor denied this, saying that Kamougué had not been arrested and that he was "hiding in the country's interior". It later emerged that Kamougué had escaped arrest. In a statement on February 26, he and another opposition leader, Saleh Kebzabo, released a statement calling for "the immediate convening of an all-inclusive national dialogue", the release of the three opposition leaders who had been arrested and an international inquiry into the arrests, and an immediate cease-fire. Kamougué returned to N'Djamena from Cameroon on March 22, having received guarantees of safety from the authorities. In the government of Prime Minister Youssouf Saleh Abbas, which was announced on April 23, 2008, Kamougué was appointed as Minister of National Defense. He was one