DAKAR, Senegal
Mutinous soldiers in Gabon said Wednesday they were overturning the results of a presidential election that was to extend the Bongo family’s 55-year hold on power.
The central African country’s
election committee announced that President Ali Bongo Ondimba, 64, had won the
election with 64% of the vote early Wednesday morning. Within minutes, gunfire
was heard in the center of the capital, Libreville.
A dozen uniformed soldiers
appeared on state television later the same morning and announced that they had
seized power.
The soldiers intended to
“dissolve all institutions of the republic,” said a spokesman for the group,
whose members were drawn from the gendarme, the republican guard and other
elements of the security forces.
Ali Bongo Ondimba |
Unlike
Niger and two other West African countries run by military juntas, Gabon hasn’t
been wracked by jihadi violence and had been seen as relatively stable.
In his annual Independence Day
speech Aug. 17, Bongo said “While our continent has been shaken in recent weeks
by violent crises, rest assured that I will never allow you and our country
Gabon to be hostages to attempts at destabilization. Never.”
At a time when anti-France
sentiment is spreading in many former colonies, the French-educated Bongo met
President Emmanuel Macron in Paris in late June and shared photos of them
shaking hands.
The coup’s leaders vowed to
respect “Gabon’s commitments to the national and international community.”
Bongo was seeking a third term
in elections this weekend. He served two terms since coming to power in 2009
after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who ruled the country for 41 years.
Another group of mutinous soldiers attempted a coup in January 2019, while
Bongo was in Morocco recovering from a stroke, but they were quickly
overpowered.
In the election, Bongo faced
an opposition coalition led by economics professor and former education
minister Albert Ondo Ossa, whose surprise nomination came a week before the
vote.
There were concerns about
post-election violence, due to deep-seated grievances among the population of
some 2.5 million. Nearly 40% of Gabonese ages 15-24 were out of work in 2020,
according to the World Bank.
After last week’s vote, the
Central African nation’s Communications Minister, Rodrigue Mboumba Bissawou,
announced a nightly curfew from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m., and said
internet access was being restricted indefinitely to quell disinformation and
calls for violence.
Every vote held in Gabon since
the country’s return to a multi-party system in 1990 has ended in violence.
Clashes between government forces and protesters following the 2016 election
killed four people, according to official figures. The opposition said the
death toll was far higher.
Fearing violence, many people
in the capital went to visit family in other parts of the country before the
election or left Gabon altogether. Others stockpiled food or bolstered security
in their homes.
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