A group of soldiers has announced that the Army has seized power in Gabon shortly after the country's electoral commission declared the victory of Gabonese President Ali Bongo in last Saturday's elections.
"We put an end to the current regime," said a group of a dozen soldiers in a message broadcast on the Gabon 24 television channel, according to EFE. The Bongo family has ruled this small nation - with just over two million inhabitants - for more than five decades.
The message was issued after the National Autonomous and Permanent Electoral Commission (Cenap) reported that Bongo won the presidential elections on the 26th with 64.27% of the votes, despite allegations of fraud by the opposition. .
The father of the current ruler, Omar Bongo, one of the richest men on the planet thanks to the fortune derived from the country's oil wealth, led the country from 1967 until his death -in Barcelona- in 2009. More than a third of the Gabonese live on less than two dollars a day, according to the World Bank, and few benefit from the rewards of oil, which accounts for 80% of the country's exports.
Ali Bongo, 64 years old and whose victory grants him a third five-year term, prevailed over the candidate of the main opposition coalition Alternancia 2023, Albert Ondo Ossa, who came in second with 33.77% of the vote.
Ossa had denounced "an orchestrated fraud" by President Bongo's Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) in the elections, which took place without the presence of international observers.
This vote takes place in the shadow of the 2016 presidential elections, when Bongo won the opposition Jean Ping by less than 6,000 votes and the opposition denounced electoral fraud. This unleashed a post-electoral crisis with violent protests, strongly repressed, in which the demonstrators even set fire to the National Assembly.
The Gabonese authorities temporarily suspended international media broadcasts after the general elections were held this Saturday and after cutting off the internet connection and announcing a curfew, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) confirmed to EFE on Sunday.
