Military stages coup in Gabon after controversial presidential poll

By Aurore Bonny

DOUALA, Cameroon (AA) – Military in Gabon on Wednesday staged a coup in the central African country, saying it has taken power after President Ali Bongo was declared winner in Saturday’s election.

Army officers appeared on national television to say they were annulling the results of Saturday's election, in which Bongo was declared the winner for a third term.

The victory proclaimed Wednesday morning by the national electoral authority on national television housed within the presidency in Libreville, the capital, was rejected a few minutes later by officers of the presidential guard live from the same channel.

The results of this election are "truncated", declared the military, deciding to cancel it and put an "end to the regime" of Bongo.

The Gabonese people voted on Saturday to elect a new president from among 13 candidates in a ballot marked by irregularities and suspicions of fraud, resulting in the military coup on Wednesday following the results announcement.

Gabon's current president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, 64, was first elected in 2009 following the death of his father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, who ruled from 1967 to 2009. He was re-elected for the second time in 2016 in a poll marked by deadly violence and accusations of rigging.

Bongo, whose political party, the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), holds strong majorities in both houses of parliament, won a third term in office on Wednesday following the Aug. 28 election with over 64% of the vote, compared with over 30% for opposition candidate Albert Ondo Ossa, his former education minister and rival in the 2009 presidential election.

Tension was first felt during voting on Saturday when polling stations suspended by the electoral body were reopened in the diaspora. Some polling stations that opened late due to a lack of voting materials were also closed for several hours, according to public television.

Immediately after his vote during the day, Ondo Ossa denounced "fraud" and demanded to be declared the winner at the end of the ballot. He called on Bongo to step down, "guaranteeing" his safety and declaring that "there will be no negotiation."

He made this announcement in a video broadcast on social networks shortly before the internet was cut off by Rodrigue Mboumba Bissawou, Gabon's Minister of Communications.

Speaking via national television, Bissawou also announced a night-time curfew in the name of "the nation's higher interest." He said it was necessary to counter "calls for violence" and "false information" on social networks.

"The government has shut down the internet as a precautionary measure following some provocative statements by opposition politicians," said Environment Minister Lee White on X.

Local and international observers saw the internet blackout as a violation and a measure to conceal evidence of irregularities during the polls.

"The post-election context was very tense due to the closure of the internet and borders, and this heralded tampered results since the presidential election itself took place behind closed doors," said Regis Hounkpe , a Beninese geopolitical scientist and director of Interglobe Conseils, a company specializing in geopolitical expertise, told Anadolu.

"To say that this putsch was foreseeable would be going too far, but the ingredients of a political crisis were obvious to observe," Hounkpe observed.

For other observers, this coup was "predictable."

It could have been avoided, according to Dany Ayida, Togolese International Development and Governance Specialist and Resident Director of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), who blames "sham elections that don't pass muster."

"We're pretending to believe that things could happen democratically in an anti-democratic system," he declared.

For him, the Gabonese army has put an end to the long 60-year cycle of the Bongo dynasty.

"This country has not made a successful transition to democracy," he added.