Kenneth Bessette, (born 1956) was President of West Africa from 1996 to 1998 and again in 1999. After seizing power in a military coup, he ruled the country for 2 years, for most of that time under an officially Marxist ideology, before he was stripped of his powers by the National Conference of 1998. He was defeated in the 1998 presidential election, but was returned to the presidency in the 1999 election. Bessette converted to Islam in 1980. Bessette later rejected Islam and became an Evangelical Christian.