Gabon military officers claim power, say election lacked credibility
www.aljazeera.com
Television announcement comes shortly after incumbent Ali Bongo is declared president for a third term.

A group of senior military officers has gone on national television in Gabon saying they have seized power because elections held over the weekend were not credible.

The officers, appearing on Gabon 24 in the early hours of Wednesday morning, said they had cancelled the elections, dissolved all state institutions and closed the country’s borders.

They said they represented all security and defence forces of Gabon.

The announcement came shortly after the state election body said President Ali Bongo Ondimba had won a third term in office in Saturday’s disputed elections.

“In the name of the Gabonese people … we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime,” the officers said.

The Gabonese Election Centre said Bongo had secured 64.27 percent of the vote compared with 30.77 percent for his main challenger Albert Ondo Ossa, after a process beset by delays.

Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from Kenya, said that “there are lots of uncertainties” surrounding the military action.

“There is a lot of tension as well. They [military leaders] are claiming that the government has not been respecting the will of the Gabonese people for so many years and they say that has to change,” said Soi.

On Saturday, the opposition camp said the election was a “fraud orchestrated by Ali Bongo and his supporters” after the internet was cut and a curfew imposed. French media outlets France 24, RFI and TV5 Monde were also banned, accused of “a lack of objectivity and balance … in connection with the current general elections”, the government said.

“We also know that the internet is still shut down. It was shut down over the weekend and curfew was imposed,” Soi said. “So, people are very afraid.”

“It is very hard for people in Gabon to access the information that they need to know what is happening,” she added.

Bongo was the candidate for the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), the party founded by his father, Omar Bongo, who led Gabon from 1967 to 2009. After his death, his son, then the defence minister, took his place as president and has been in power ever since.

“We have no idea where President Bongo is. The military did not say where the president is. Things are moving very fast,” reported Soi.

Tensions had been running high amid Saturday’s vote with the opposition pushing for change and an end to the Bongo family’s dominance of Gabon.

  • JuneFall [none/use name]
    ·
    10 months ago

    Ondimba

    Is/was the prime minister of Gabon for the last 15 years or so (even after a stroke in 2018). Before that he was part of his father's political circle and had positions assigned to him on the level of ministers. His father Omar Bongo (who you might know better) was "ruling" Gabon since 1967. The power of the family is significant.

    The ruling party after his father's demise was a centrist right party with many elements of neoliberalism and some verbal alignment to pan africanism. During the last election and also this election quite a few people are angry about possible election interference, this the military uses as justification (along with a couple of other things, like breaking the power of the ruling family etc.).

    Fun tidbit:

    Allein der Präsidialetat Bongos verbraucht jährlich 8,5 % des gesamten Staatshaushalts (Stand 2009), wofür Bongo US-Ermittlern zufolge mindestens seit dem Jahr 2000 ein Geheimkonto bei der deutschen Citibank nutzt.

    Just the presidential budget amounts to 8.5% of the whole state household in 2009. US investigators claim that he uses secret accounts for that, at least since 2000 an account of the German Citibank.