“The election result must be perfectly clear and transparent”, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said on RMC radio, adding that the election results should be published bureau by bureau.
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Bongo was reported to have won the election with 49.8% of the vote versus 48.2% for Ping, a margin of just 5,594 votes out of a total 627,805 registered voters.
Demonstrators had set fire to cars and buildings, vandalized a mall and looted a bank in the capital.
Violence has broken out in the Gabonese capital Libreville after President Ali Bongo was declared victor of Saturday’s presidential election. “They were bombarding with helicopters and then they attacked on the ground”, Ping said earlier.
Around 1 a.m. Thursday, soldiers in green berets identifying them as the presidential guard shot live rounds during an attack on Ping’s opposition headquarters, injuring at least 20 people, according to Paul Marie Gondjout, an opposition electoral representative who was there.
Opposition delegates in the electoral commission have vowed to fight for a recount.
Ali Bongo became president in 2009.
At issue are the results from one province where the tallies show almost 100 percent voter turnout, with Bongo receiving 95 percent of the votes.
The opposition has described the election as fraudulent and called for voting figures from each of Gabon’s polling stations to be made public to ensure the credibility of overall result – a demand echoed by the United States and European Union.
“The whole building is catching fire”, a man outside parliament who gave name as Yannick told Agence France-Presse.
That contested vote followed the death of Bongo’s father, Omar Bongo, who ruled the oil-rich country for 41 years.
“The events during the night in Libreville have made me extremely concerned”, said Ayrault, who called on “all sides to exercise maximum restraint, in order to avoid more victims”.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged political leaders and their supporters “to refrain from further acts that could undermine the peace and stability of the country”.
The campaign period was marked by months of bitter exchanges between the two camps, including accusations, and strenuous denials, that Bongo was born in Nigeria and therefore ineligible to run.
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Security forces surrounded the opposition headquarters overnight and attempted to storm the building.
