Seven months after the coup d’état which ended fifty-five years of the “Bongo dynasty” in Gabon, transitional president Brice Oligui Nguema will keep his promise on Tuesday April 2 with a month-long inclusive national dialogue (DNI), supposedly prepare for elections in 2025.
The respect so far of the timetable for a two-year transition is welcomed by the international community and a large majority of Gabonese, for whom the general is a “hero” who saved them from a “corrupt” regime, but from Voices are being raised to criticize a dialogue “between ourselves”, which will pave a royal road for General Oligui towards the presidential election. Calls to postpone and reorganize this “consultation of all the active forces of the nation” are daily among the fringe of the former opposition which has not rallied to military power and in the independent press.
At issue, first of all, a “unilateral” organization and the pride of place, among the 580 participants, given to the military and the institutions appointed by the president since the coup d’état of August 30, 2023: government, deputies, senators, “ special delegations” having replaced municipal and departmental councils, etc.
The 580 participants were named by Mr. Oligui, including 104 military personnel. And 199 of the seats “are already acquired” by the military authority, and “much more with the special delegations” – potentially nearly 300 in total –, recalled the independent media GabonReview.com in an editorial on the 21 March entitled “DNI: a game of bonneteau”. Especially since the opposition criticizes the maintenance, at the top of the institutions, of many leaders of the regimes of Omar Bongo, president for forty-one years, and of his son Ali (over fourteen years).
“The same ones who defiled the country yesterday.”
In the heart of PK 10, a disadvantaged district of the capital, Libreville, the comments are enthusiastic or disillusioned. “Everyone will give their opinion, we’ve waited a long time for this,” rejoices Firmin, retired from the gendarmerie. “We wonder if it’s not going to come to nothing,” says Tristan Gelaz, 50, with a smile, for whom “the actors of the transition are the same ones who sullied the country yesterday.”
For the rest of the 580 participants, the head of state chose one from four proposed by each of the 104 legally recognized parties, a large majority of which have pledged allegiance to the general since the putsch.
“This is not respectful of the internal democracy of the parties,” protests Anges Kevin Nzigou, of the Party for Change (PLC), for whom the military power “demonstrates its desire to control the debate from start to finish”. “We need to review the participation criteria, they are not inclusive,” adds Lionel Giovanni Boulingui, of the opposition Réagir party. “Organizing a dialogue and choosing who comes is a bit like having defined what will be said,” analyzes Guy Pambo Mihindou, political science researcher at the University of Libreville. Mr. Oligui also named the 217 representatives of civil society (employers, unions, retirees, young people, NGOs, religions, etc.).
“In total opacity”
Furthermore, the absence of information on the preparation and progress of the work worries the opposition. “The organization of the DNI is carried out in total opacity,” denounces Joachim Mbatchi Pambou, of the Forum for the Defense of the Republic (FDR). This is true of the call for contributions launched in October 2023, reaching out to the most remote villages.
The president wanted “all Gabonese” to be able to express themselves, boasts his minister for institutional reform, Murielle Minkoué, who claims 38,000 complaints collected in counters or on an online platform, among the 2 million inhabitants of this small oil-rich central African country. They were to be synthesized to serve as a basis for the work of the DNI, but, four days before its opening, no summary has been published.
As the national dialogue is not “sovereign”, its resolutions will not be binding, its detractors also believe, particularly for the new Constitution, promised to a referendum at the end of 2024.
Finally, the opposition’s grievances focus on the future of the head of state: the transition charter issued by the military after the putsch prohibits the 2025 presidential election to all executives of the transitional institutions, with the exception …of President Oligui. For the opposition, this provision will not be called into question by a DNI “eaten up” by the general’s thurifers, of which it denounces the beginning of a “cult of personality” and a boulevard mapped out for the 2025 election.