['< sod > after the kolingba regime sabotaged a first set of elections in 1992, which patasse would have probably won, a second set of elections was held and on the second round on september 19, 1993, he came in first, defeating kolingba, david dacko and [ [ abel goumba ] ], and took office on october 22, 1993. largely thanks to the foreign pressure notably from the usa and technical support from the un, for the first time the elections were fair and democratic. patasse thus became the first president in the nation\'s history to gain power by such means. he had the support of most of his own sara - kaba people, the largest ethno - linguistic group in the central african republic, as well as the souma people of his " hometown " of paoua and the kare people of his mother. most of his supporters lived in the most populous northwestern savanna regions of the car, and thus came to be called " northerners ", whereas all previous presidents were from either the forest or ubangi river regions in the south, and so their supporters came to be called " southerners ". as a populist, patasse promoted himself as a candidate who represented a majority of the population against the privileges of southerners who held a disproportionate number of lucrative jobs in the public and parastatal sectors of the economy. as president, patasse began to replace many " southerners " with " northerners " in these jobs which infuriated many yakoma people in particular who had benefited from the patronage of former president kolingba. { { citation needed | date = january 2013 } } < eod > < sod > after the kolingba regime sabotaged a first set of elections in 1992, which patasse would have probably won, a second set of elections was held and on the second round on september 19, 1993, he came in first with 37 percent of the vote - - well ahead of his nearest competitors, kolingba, david dacko and [ [ abel goumba ] ]. he defeated abel goumba in the runoff. largely thanks to the foreign pressure notably from the usa and technical support from the un, for the first time the elections were fair and democratic. patasse thus became the first president in the nation\'s history to gain power by such means. when he took office on october 22, 1993 ; it marked the first ( and to date, only ) time in the country\'s history that a sitting government peacefully surrendered power to the opposition. < eod >']