Gabon’s President Ali Bongo shrugged off growing worldwide pressure on Wednesday to recount last week’s disputed election, saying it was a matter for the constitutional court to decide.
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“Jean Ping has committed fraud”, Bongo said in an interview with France’s Europe 1 radio on Wednesday.
Elected president Ali Bongo received 49.8 percent of the vote against 48.23 percent for rival Jean Ping.
Several people have been killed in violence triggered by the results, which showed Bongo winning a second term by a wafer-thin margin of some 6,000 votes.
Ping’s camp has alleged the number of votes cast for Bongo in southeastern Haut-Ogooue province was inflated.
Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Observers from the European Union (EU) questioned the credibility of the electoral participation of 99.93 percent, according to the official record in Haut-Ogooué, the home province of the president.
He said on Tuesday in Paris that the European observers on the ground have expressed their criticism on the basis of objective facts.
Some 800 people have been arrested in recent days in the capital Libreville, with the authorities accusing them of looting, while lawyers say they are being held in “deplorable” conditions.
Manuel Valls, prime minister of former colonial power France, suggested a recount would be wise and urged authorities to help locate about 15 of its nationals – out of a local French community of around 14,000 – it says are missing. “As far as a recount is concerned … that’s done at the level of the Constitutional Court”.
Chadian President Idriss Deby, current Chairman of the Union, said on Tuesday in Addis Ababa that this move has become imperative because he has continued to follow, with renewed attention, the evolution of the situation in Gabon.
Ping has yet to announce whether he will challenge the election in the Constitutional Court.
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 made a decision to resign over the government’s refusal to recount controversial ballots.
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.
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“It is clear that the government is hiding the true toll”, Ntoutoume Ayi said.
