Violence broke out in Libreville on Wednesday, after Gabon’s Interior Minister Pacome Moubelet Boubeya announced the incumbent President Ali Bongo as the victor of Saturday’s poll, defeating his closest opponent and main opposition candidate Jean Ping by a very slim margin.
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Election commission results showed President Ali Bongo Ondimba beat opposition contender Jean Ping in Gabon’s August 27 presidential vote by 1.57 percentage points.
Gabon’s justice minister resigned Monday over the government’s refusal to recount the ballots, adding more uncertainty to this oil-rich Central African country that has been run by the Bongo family since the 1960s. The government says more than 1,200 have been detained.
Speaking on France’s Europe 1 radio station, Bongo said that criticism by European Union observers against the voting process in Gabon is “biased”.
Ping’s call for a nationwide strike was followed by news of the resignation of Gabon’s Minister for Justice Seraphin Moundounga who said he chose to resign over the government’s refusal to recount controversial ballots.
France had joined the European Union and the United States in calling for the results to be published according to each polling station but, until now, had stopped short of demanding a recount.
Ping, also speaking to Europe-1, dismissed the accusations and called for worldwide help in determining “the truth”.
Ping on Friday declared himself the rightful victor of the vote.
According to the electoral commission, there was a 99.93 percent turnout in that province, with 95 percent voting in favor of Bongo.
On Tuesday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls also suggested a “recount” of votes of the presidential election in Gabon.
The EU noted that such a number means only 47 people in the area wouldn’t have voted. According to the interior ministry, turnout in the other provinces varied between 45 percent and 71 percent.
He lost to President Ali Ondimba Bongo in the presidential election held on August 27, 2016, whose results were hotly disputed.
“We ask the Gabonese authorities that everything be done to find them”.
France has intervened in its former African colonies in the past but has ruled out intervention in Gabon, which has been run by the Bongo family for half a century.
Gabon also experienced a spate of deadly post-electoral violence in 2009 after Bongo succeeded his father, Omar Bongo who had ruled the country for 42 years.
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“I expect the high-level delegation to be dispatched very soon”, African Union spokesman Jacob Enoh Eben said.
