Gabon: Ali Bongo overthrown, the head of the Republican Guard "transitional president"

August 30, 2023

The putschist soldiers who put an end to the regime in place in Gabon on Wednesday, deposing outgoing President Ali Bongo Ondimba and provoking demonstrations of jubilation in the country, placed at their head the head of the Republican Guard, General Brice Oligui Nguema.

Until this coup, condemned by the African Union and France, this oil-rich Central African country had been ruled for more than 55 years by the Bongo family. The opposition regularly denounces the “Bongo dynasty” in a country where corruption is endemic.

During a crazy day, which began with the nocturnal proclamation of Mr. Bongo’s victory in the presidential election on Saturday and punctuated by the putschists’ press releases on television, the latter announced the establishment of a regime of ” transition”, the duration of which they did not specify.

On Wednesday evening, the country’s new strongman, General Brice Oligui Nguema, head of the Republican Guard – Gabon’s army’s elite unit – was officially named “president of the transition”, after being brought in triumph by hundreds of soldiers.

The putschists, who had restored internet access in the morning, ordered the restoration of broadcasting of RFI, France 24 and TV5 Monde, suspended by Mr. Bongo’s government on Saturday evening.

However, they maintained the curfew in force since Saturday, now effective from 6:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m., in the name of “the need to maintain calm and serenity”. Likewise, the country’s borders remain closed.

Ousted President Ali Bongo, 64, appeared visibly taken aback in a video posted to social media, calling on all his “friends around the world” in English to “make some noise”.

But in Libreville or Port-Gentil, the economic capital, happy crowds celebrated “the liberation of Gabon”.

In the working-class Plein Ciel district of Libreville, an AFP staffer saw around 100 people on a bridge, on foot or in cars, shouting, “Bongo out!”. To the sound of horns, they greeted and applauded police in riot gear and face masks.

In Port-Gentil, the economic capital, on the Place du Château d’eau, a popular district and bastion of the opposition, hundreds of people honked their horns shouting “Gabon is liberated”. Some danced with uniformed police and military personnel, reported Ousmane Manga, an independent journalist contacted by telephone by AFP.

Ali Bongo was elected in 2009 on the death of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba, pillar of “Françafrique”, who had ruled the country for more than 41 years. He was placed under “house arrest, surrounded by his family and his doctors”, according to the putschists.

But one of his sons, Noureddin Bongo Valentin, was arrested in particular for “high treason” as well as six other young senior officials of the Presidency, including the director of cabinet of Mr. Bongo as well as the numbers one and two of the all-powerful Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG).

The opposition and civil society regularly accused the members of this “young guard” of having become the true leaders of the country because, according to them, Ali Bongo was very weakened by the after-effects of a stroke in 2018.

International reactions to this new coup in a French-speaking African country were quick: the UN and the African Union condemned the putsch and called on the military to guarantee the physical integrity of Mr. Bongo and his relatives.

China called for “guaranteeing the safety of Ali Bongo”, Russia expressed its “deep concern”, Washington said it was “monitoring very closely” the situation, while France, a former colonial power, “condemned the military coup”. Germany too, while evoking “legitimate criticism of the transparency” of the elections and the United Kingdom doing the same while acknowledging “concerns raised by the recent electoral process”.

On Wednesday, just after the proclamation of Mr. Bongo’s victory in the presidential election with 64.27% of the vote against 30.77% for his main rival Albert Ondo Ossa, who denounced massive fraud, a group of a dozen soldiers had appeared on the screens of the Gabon 24 television channel, housed within the presidency itself.

Gathered within the “Committee for the transition and the restoration of institutions (CTRI), they “decided to defend peace by putting an end to the regime in place”, announced a colonel.

Ali Bongo “is retired, he enjoys all his rights. He is a normal Gabonese, like everyone else,” General Oligui told the French newspaper Le Monde.

“He did not have the right to serve a third term, the Constitution was flouted, the method of election itself was not good. So the army decided to turn the page, to take its responsibilities” , he argued.

Mr. Bongo was seeking a third term, reduced from 7 to 5 years, in Saturday’s elections which included three ballots, presidential, legislative and municipal.

The French mining group Eramet, which notably operates a large manganese mine, announced the gradual resumption of its activities in Gabon “from this (Wednesday) evening”