After Niger, is Gabon in the process of rocking? While the national authority in charge of the ballot had just validated the re-election of President Ali Bongo Ondimba for a third term with 64.27% of the votes cast, soldiers announced on television, this Wednesday, August 30, the cancellation of elections and the dissolution of institutions. Automatic weapon fire was heard in Libreville, the capital. L’Express takes stock of the latest information.
The military want to put an end to the regime in place
After noting “an irresponsible, unpredictable governance which results in a continuous deterioration of social cohesion risking to lead the country to chaos […] we have decided to defend peace by putting an end to the regime in place”, declared one of these soldiers, saying that he was speaking on behalf of a “Committee for the transition and restoration of institutions”. During this declaration, journalists from the heard automatic gunfire in Libreville.
Polling authority validates Bongo’s re-election
According to the national authority in charge of the ballot, the President of Gabon Ali Bongo Ondimba, in power for 14 years, had obtained a third term in Saturday’s elections with 64.27% of the votes cast. Ali Bongo Ondimba beat, in a single round ballot, his main rival Albert Ondo Ossa, who won only 30.77% of the vote, as well as 12 other candidates who only collected crumbs, had detailed the President of the Gabonese Election Center (CGE), Michel Stéphane Bonda, on the air of Gabon 1ère state television.
“At the end of the centralization of the results […] is elected Bongo Ondimba Ali with 293,919 votes or 64.27%”, declared Michel Stéphane Bonda.
“Fraud” according to the opposition
The turnout for the election was 56.65%. Albert Ondo Ossa had denounced “fraud orchestrated by the Bongo camp” two hours before the close of the poll on Saturday, and then already claimed victory. His camp had urged Ali Bongo Ondimba on Monday to “organize, without bloodshed, the transfer of power” on the basis of a count carried out according to him by his own tellers, and without producing any supporting document.
The country under curfew
The official results were announced in the middle of the night, at 03:30 (02:30 GMT), on state television without any announcement of the event having been made beforehand. In the middle of a curfew therefore, and while the internet is cut across the country, two measures decreed by the government on Saturday before the closing of the polling stations, in order to ward off, according to him, the dissemination of “fake news” and possible “violence”.