On the seaside, in Libreville, capital of Gabon, traffic resumed very early this Thursday, August 31. After the coup that took place between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Wednesday morning, the main arteries of the city were blocked by the military. “We couldn’t even go for a walk, we were going around in circles in the neighborhood, remembers Jeannine that the taxi was good to drop off at the entrance of Batterie-IV, a wealthy district of the capital. I will try to catch up on my work from yesterday. »
Like Patricia, the Gabonese, who yesterday celebrated the coup with great fanfare, seem delighted that life is starting again. Many feared the near-lockdown period would last too long: “With the curfew in place on Sunday [the day after the election] and no internet, I needed to see people again,” admits a young woman who benefits, with her feet in the sand, from this return to normality. If the curfew has been maintained by the Committee for the Transition and Restitution of Institutions (CTRI) and even brought forward by one hour, everyone is free to go about their business from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. To the delight of companies Gabonese, whose activity was stopped yesterday and resumed with renewed vigor this morning.
At the stroke of 2 p.m., more than 200 Gabonese bosses crossed the gates of the presidential palace by the sea. They had an appointment with General Bruce Oligui Nguema, appointed head of the CTRI.
These are the first civilians that the military, new tenants of the palace, meet. “We needed to be reassured about the sequence of events,” says the communication officer of the Gabonese Employers’ Federation.
Many Gabonese in the street wonder about the sequence of events. “The general has not yet mentioned a deadline for this transition phase”, note the sellers in Charbonnage, northeast of the capital, happy to have found their sales space which they had to leave shortly before general elections. “I’m happy with this situation, afterwards, we just continue to do our business, what happens in the presidency, it mainly concerns politicians, adds Ishmael, taxi bus driver during his break. That they don’t forget us, that they just don’t forget how we support them. »
Indeed, on the side of the figures of Gabonese politics, planning “the post-transition” is at the center of the consultations. “Our candidate, Albert Ondo Ossa, was elected with 65% of the votes, it is the members of the Gabonese electoral committee who say so, we want the function to return to him”, explains François Ndong Obiang, president of the platform of the opposition, Alternance 2023. At the start of the afternoon, the alliance told the press that it was open to discussion with the putschists.
For the moment, the military in power have not mentioned a meeting with the Gabonese opposition. And unfortunately for her, they also declared on local television, their only means of communication until now, that they considered that the poll, which was held on Saturday in a poisonous climate, as “cancelled”. The only message they sent to the Gabonese today concerns the enthronement of the general scheduled for Monday. “I hope we’ll celebrate, we’re Gabonese after all,” said two young women on a walk by the sea when the news broke.
