Military leaders seize power in oil-rich Gabon
Army officers say they have taken control from President Ali Bongo after he was declared election winner
Military officers in the oil-rich African country of Gabon announced on television on Wednesday morning that they had taken power, just hours after the electoral commission declared long-serving president Ali Bongo winner of Saturday’s election.
“In the name of the Gabonese people . . . we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime,” the officers clad in military fatigues, who claimed to represent all the security and defence units in the nation of 2.4mn, said on the Gabon 24 TV channel.
The electoral commission earlier on Wednesday said Bongo had clinched a third term with 64.27 per cent of the vote and looked set to extend his family’s 56-year rule. Bongo has been in power since his father Omar died in office in 2009 after ruling for more than four decades.
The opposition coalition of six parties, led by economics professor Albert Ondo Ossa, got 30.77 per cent of the vote.
Ondo Ossa, who served as a minister under the elder Bongo, had claimed victory before the results were announced and alleged the election was a “fraud orchestrated by Ali Bongo and his supporters”.
If successful, the coup in Gabon would be the eighth across west and central Africa since 2020 following two putsches each in Mali and Burkina Faso, and one each in Chad, Guinea and Niger.
Gabon, a former French colony, maintains close economic and diplomatic ties to Paris. As a member of the Opec cartel of oil exporters, Gabon is a major producer in Africa, with an average of almost 200,000 barrels a day. The country also exports timber, manganese and uranium.
Despite living in a country with one of Africa’s highest incomes per capita, more than one-third of Gabonese people live below the poverty line and lack access to basic services. The president’s family has been accused of profiting from the state’s wealth at the expense of its citizens. French authorities last year charged five siblings of the current president in connection with an €85mn fraud case.
Saturday’s election took place in an almost complete media blackout as the government denied entry to all foreign outlets, according to media advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. International observers were also not present to monitor the exercise.
France 24, Radio France Internationale and TV5Monde, which are wholly or partly owned by the French government, had their operations suspended by the Gabonese authorities for their alleged “lack of objectivity and balance” in their election coverage.
Late on election day, the government announced a nationwide internet shutdown to combat what it claimed were the “dangers of false information and manipulation” on the internet and imposed a curfew.
This is the second known coup attempt of Bongo’s reign. In January 2019, a small group of soldiers seized the state-owned radio station, saying they wanted to “restore democracy”. The mutiny was quickly put down with two suspected coup plotters killed.
A spokesperson for the president could not be reached.