Ricardo Lumengo (born 22 February 1962) is a Swiss politician, former member of the Social Democratic Party of the canton of Berne.
Lumengo was born 1962 in Lussenga, Angola. He was a student activist in Angola from 1979. Persecuted by the dos Santos government, he was forced to emigrate in 1982, entering Switzerland as an asylum seeker. He was recognized as a refugee and granted permanent residence. He studied law at the University of Fribourg.
Lumengo was naturalized as a Swiss citizen in 1997 in Fribourg, and was elected to the Biel municipal council in 2004, and in 2006 to the cantonal council of Berne.
In the 2007 federal election, he was elected to the Swiss National Council, as the country's first national councillor of African origin (although there had been a councillor of mixed Swiss-African ancestry before: Tilo Frey, served 1971–1975), and the first former asylum seeker to be elected into the council.
On 19 February 2010, Lumengo was investigated for voting irregularities. While admitting to helping voters fill in their ballot papers in 2006, he rejected all accusations of trying to falsify the results.[1]
Lumengo was convicted of election fraud on 11 November 2010 and mulcted ten day rates of CHF 180. His party immediately asked him to resign. Instead, he appealed the verdict and left the Social Democratic Party, announcing he would retain his seat in the National Council as an independent politician.[2] On 18 may 2011 he was cleared of electoral fraud.[3]
He joined the Social Liberal Movement, for whom he ran for re-election to the National Council in the 2011 federal election. The party won 0.3% of the vote in Bern, and Lumengo failed to be re-elected.
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