Vote count underway in oil-rich Gabon, after citizens trooped out to vote on Saturday in a presidential election that the country’s military leader Brice Oligui Nguema hoped would legitimise his grip on power.
Nineteen months after overthrowing President Ali Bongo, whose family ruled Gabon for more than half a century, Nguema, 50, has pitched himself as a change agent cracking down on the corrupt old guard.
Analysts have predicted an overwhelming victory for the interim president who led the coup.
Some 920,000 voters, including over 28,000 overseas, are registered across more than 3,000 polling stations.
Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, who was the former head of the republican guard, toppled President Ali Bongo Ondimba nearly two years ago. He hopes to consolidate his grip on power for a seven-year term in office.
After casting his ballot on Saturday in the capital, Libreville, Oligui Nguema said: “I have a feeling of pride, I have a feeling of joy. I see so much enthusiasm from the Gabonese people gathered here and who want to turn the page to join the new Republic.”
He called the election “transparent” and “peaceful.”
Bongo was placed under house arrest after the coup, but then freed a week later due to health concerns. His wife and son were detained and charged with corruption and embezzlement of public funds. Bongo himself was not charged.
Following the coup, Oligui Nguema promised to “return power to civilians” through “credible elections.” But he proclaimed himself the interim president and then a presidential candidate, following the adoption by the parliament of a new contentious electoral code allowing military personnel to run.
He has touted himself as a leader who wants to unify the Gabonese and give them hope, running his presidential campaign under the slogan: “We Build Together.”
The country’s new constitution, adopted in a referendum in November, has set the presidential term at seven years, renewable once, instead of the unlimited fiver-year term. It also states family members can’t succeed a president and has abolished the position of prime minister.
Lionel Ekambou, a 28-year-old nurse, woke up early to vote for Nguema, who has been interim leader since spearheading the coup as an army general.”His social project meets my expectations and, I am convinced, will contribute to building a better future,” he said.
Criss-crossing the country in a baseball cap bearing his “We Build Together” slogan, Nguema vowed to diversify the oil-reliant economy and promote agriculture, industry and tourism in a country where a third of the population of around 2.5 million lives in poverty.
Yet not everyone believes Nguema represents a genuine break with the past. He is a former aide-de-camp for Ali Bongo’s father Omar Bongo, who was president for more than 40 years until his death in 2009.
“He sold us a dream,” Libaski Moussavou, 34, told Reuters before casting his ballot, accusing Nguema of surrounding himself with Bongo-era holdovers “whom the Gabonese people decried”.
Oligui Nguema’s main challenger, Bongo’s former Prime Minister Alain Claude Bilie-By-Nze, in a recent interview queried Nguema’s fitness for the presidency, telling Reuters that military men should “go back to their barracks”.
In a region where France is losing longstanding allies in many of its former colonies, Gabon stands out as one of only a few where that partnership has not been threatened. It still has more than 300 French troops present, one of only two African countries still hosting them.
Oligui Nguema has not signalled an end to the French military presence, but Bilie-By-Nze has said “no subject is off limits” in renegotiating the ties between the two countries.
Bilie-By-Nze also said during the interview with AP that he didn’t expect the election to be fair or transparent. “Everything has been done to lock down the vote,” he said.
