Voters in Gabon turned out for an election on Saturday that could mark the greatest challenge yet to President Ali Bongo, whose family has controlled the oil-producing central African nation for almost half a century. Not to proclaim the results right now but to continue to try to manipulate the results.
Advertisement
European Union observers said the vote in the oil-rich Central African country was “managed in a way that lacked transparency”.
Bongo, 57, came to power in 2009 after the death of his father Omar Bongo who ruled the country for 42 years.
Backers of the president and his main challenger, Jean Ping, also traded accusations of fraud allegedly committed during Saturday’s vote, raising the prospect of increased tension in the wake of an uncharacteristically bitter campaign.
Official results from Saturday’s vote are due out on Tuesday and candidates are prohibited by law from making such announcements.
In comments broadcast overnight on state-owned television, the spokesman went even further, “Even if no figure can or should be given at this stage, we are, in light of information we are receiving, able to say that our candidate. will claim victory”.
“Jean Ping is foolishly not respecting Gabon’s institutions and is preparing to announce false results”, Bilie-By-Nze said via Twitter, using a hashtag which translates as “Shame on Ping”.
The head of the Pan-African Democracy Observatory, an NGO based in Togo, played down the significance of Ping’s declaration.
Bongo’s bid for a second seven-year term is aided by the fact that Gabon does not have a runoff system, meaning he does not have to win more than 50 percent of the votes in the first round to win. “It is up to you to be vigilant”.
“We are preparing to celebrate victory”.
He alleged that a decision by the Constitutional Court on Friday allowed soldiers, who traditionally support Bongo, to “vote several times in several polling centres”. He said he had told the American and French ambassadors in Libreville that he meant to guarantee the security of Bongo and his family. Shops and stalls usually open on Sundays were shuttered.
Fearing a repeat of the violence that followed Bongo’s victory in 2009, many residents have stocked up on food and are staying indoors.
Several people were killed, buildings looted, a ceasefire imposed and the French consulate in Port Gentil torched.
An oil producer with a population of less than two million, Gabon is one of Africa’s richest countries.
Mariya was addressing a press conference as part of the mission’s preliminary statement on the polls in the capital Libreville.
Advertisement
But Gabon faces a financial squeeze owing to a long-term decline in oil output – which shrunk GDP per capita by almost a fifth between 1980 and 2014, according to the United Nations Development Programme – and a sharp fall in the price of crude over the past two years.
