From March 1994 to January 2002, Toungui was Minister of Mines, Energy and Oil;[1][3] he was assigned additional responsibility for hydraulic resources in January 1999, and in January 2001 he was promoted to the rank of Minister of State.[1] He was re-elected to the National Assembly as a PDG candidate in the 1996 parliamentary election and the 2001 parliamentary election.[1] Following the latter election, Toungui was made Minister of State for the Economy, Finance, the Budget, and Privatization[1][3] on 27 January 2002.[3][4]
In the December 2006 parliamentary election, he was elected to the National Assembly as the PDG candidate in Okonja constituency.[5] After nearly seven years as Finance Minister, Toungui was instead appointed as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Cooperation, La Francophonie, and Regional Integration on 7 October 2008.[6][7] He succeeded Laure Olga Gondjout as Foreign Minister on 9 October.[7]
After President Omar Bongo died in June 2009 and his son Ali Bongo was elected to succeed him, Toungui was retained as Foreign Minister in Ali Bongo's first government, appointed on 17 October 2009. He kept his position despite a wave of dismissals of other long-serving ministers and key officials. Having survived Ali Bongo's initial reworking of the government, he was its longest-serving minister, with nearly two decades of continuous experience.[8] He was dismissed from the government on 28 February 2012.[9]
Toungui is the son-in-law of Omar Bongo, who was President of Gabon from 1967 to 2009; he married Bongo's daughter, Pascaline Bongo,[3][10] in 1995.[10]
