Its current president is Sande Ngaryimbé,[1] its first being Wadel Abdelkader Kamougué.
[3] In the 1996 presidential election, Kamougué, as the URD candidate, took 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 incumbent President Idriss Déby, taking 30.91% of the vote compared to Déby's 69.09%.
[4] In the presidential election of 20 May 2001, Kamougué won 6.0% of the vote, and in the parliamentary election held on 21 April 2002, the URD won according to IPU Parline 3 out of 155 seats.
As of 2008, the URD is a member of the Coordination of Political Parties for the Defence of the Constitution (CPDC) opposition coalition.
[2] After Kamougué died in 2011 while campaigning, Sande Ngaryimbé took over as the leader of the URD.