The UN chief spoke with the President of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, and the presidential candidate of the Démocratie Nouvelle party, Jean Ping, in separate telephone calls earlier on Tuesday.
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Gabon’s head of state Ali Bongo came under pressure from his ruling party and the global community Wednesday to deliver a fair result in a tight and increasingly tense presidential election race.
State TV repeatedly played comments from the government warning Ping’s supporters that announcing results before the electoral commission was illegal, interspersed with music and a documentary about Nelson Mandela played on a loop.
His rival, half-Chinese ex-diplomat Jean Ping, had also claimed victory, sparking fears of violence and the deployment of anti-riot police around the capital Libreville.
Bongo won the disputed 2009 election with 41.7 percent of the vote, sparking violent demonstrations in which several people were killed and opposition protesters set the French consulate on fire.
Bongo’s allies are also furious about a statement from France’s ruling Socialist Party on Sunday declaring that early results showed Ping to be the victor.
Light armoured vehicles also began to patrol along the Atlantic coast.
Cenap chief Rene Aboghe Ella rejected calls by the European Union observers for each polling station to publish its results.
They accused French officials of carrying on the old politics of “La Francafrique” – an intricate, shadowy web of diplomacy and commerce that for decades kept African presidents in its former colonies, like Bongo’s father, in power in exchange for privileged deals for French companies.
“We’ve never seen results like these, even during the father’s time”, he added.
Opposition delegates in the electoral commission vowed to fight for a recount, should the figures in the report be validated.
In 2009, Bongo was declared victor of the election after his father’s death.
“We are well aware of all the clear manipulations and other modifications. underway at the Autonomous and Permanent National Electoral Commission and the interior ministry”, Ping said at a press conference Monday.
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Ban-Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary General urged the two friends-turned foes to accept the results and ensure that violence does not recur as it happened in 2009.
