2023-08-31 05:01:00
The president of Gabon, Ali Bongo, was overthrown this Wednesday by the military who placed him under house arrest, while one of his sons was arrested accused of “high treason”. Bongo’s re-election had just been proclaimed by the electoral authorities. Until this coup, the oil-rich central African country had been run for more than 55 years by the Bongo family.
“General Oligui Nguema Brice was unanimously appointed president of the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI),” the military said in a statement read on television after holding a meeting in the country’s capital, Libreville. The general “ordered the reconnection of the fiber optics and the reestablishment of the signal of the international radio stations and television channels” in the country, added the spokesman for the coup junta, Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi.
Although the Internet cutoff and the suspension of international media dictated by the government were lifted, the curfew was maintained, another of the measures imposed on August 26. That day the elections were held, of which President Ali Bongo was declared the winner this Wednesday morning.
Shortly after the electoral commission proclaimed its victory with 64.27 percent of the votes, a group of soldiers announced in a televised message the suspension of all institutions in Gabon and the annulment of the elections, considering that they were not transparent, credible or inclusive.
According to the results released by the Gabonese Election Center, Bongo’s main rival, Albert Ondo Ossa, achieved 30.77 percent of the vote. Ondo, 69, had denounced “frauds orchestrated by Bongo’s side” two hours before the voting closed, and claimed victory. The election was held without the presence of international observers.
According to a statement read on state television by the CTRI soldiers, “President Ali Bongo is under house arrest, surrounded by his family and doctors.” Noureddin Bongo Valentin, son and close associate of the Head of State; Ian Ghislain Ngoulou, chief of staff, and numbers one and two of Bongo’s Gabonese Democratic Party, were arrested according to the coup junta.
Television images showed hundreds of people who gathered at noon in the streets of Libreville, the capital of Gabon, a country located in central Africa, to celebrate the seditious action. In a video that circulated on social networks, Ali Bongo asked “all the friends we have in the world” to “make noise.” The ousted president added that he was at his residence and that he “did not know what was happening.”
international condemnation
Reactions around the world were immediate, with the chairperson of the African Union Commission, Moussa Faki Mahamat, describing the coup as a “flagrant violation of the legal and political instruments” of the organization. The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, also condemned the events, although he warned that the electoral process was irregular. The high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, lamented that the coup “increases instability in the central region” of the African continent.
In addition, several countries reacted, such as France, which condemned the movement although it called to “respect the result of the elections when it is known,” according to the spokesman for the French government, Olivier Véran. Russia also expressed its “deep concern” through Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, while the United States described the situation as “deeply worrying.”
Ali Bongo has been in charge of the country since the death in 2009 of his father, Omar Bongo, who had been in power since 1967, just six years after Gabon’s independence. In 2018, Ali Bongo suffered a stroke that kept him out of the public sphere for almost a year. Just a few months later, in January 2019, a group of soldiers staged a coup that was broken up by the authorities.
The coup in Gabon is the second in a month in Africa, after the Army seized power in Niger on July 26. In addition, Gabon joins the list of countries that have suffered a coup in the last three years: Mali between August 2020 and May 2021, Guinea-Conakry in September 2021, Sudan in October 2021 and Burkina Faso between January and September 2022.
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