The soldiers who overthrew President Ali Bongo this summer promised elections in August 2025 on Monday, November 13, specifying, however, that this timetable will be submitted in the spring to a national conference including “all the active forces of the nation.”
The leader of the putschists of August 30, General Brice Oligui Nguema, proclaimed transitional president by the army, had immediately promised to return power to civilians at the end of a transition, but until then he had not set the duration. Few criticized him for this, as he is popular with the vast majority of Gabonese people for having put an end to fifty-five years of the “Bongo dynasty” in a country undermined by endemic corruption. If the timetable announced on Monday is respected, the “transition” will therefore last two years.
In a context where several coup regimes in Africa have already extended these transition periods leading to elections, the generals in Libreville will be closely observed by the international community. They who have benefited, by comparison, from relative indulgence from African and Western capitals to date.
“August 2025: elections and end of the transition,” the spokesperson for military power, Lieutenant-Colonel Ulrich Manfoumbi Manfoumbi, announced live on state television on Monday, listing an “official timeline of the transition (… ) adopted by the Council of Ministers”. But this remains “indicative”, to be submitted to an “inclusive national dialogue” in April 2024 including “all the active forces of the nation”.
A “liberation shot”
On the night of August 30, when he had just been proclaimed winner of the presidential election, Ali Bongo Ondimba was overthrown without firing a shot by almost all of the general officers of the army and police gathered around of General Brice Oligui Nguema, proclaimed transitional president two days later amid jubilation throughout the country.
All political parties, including that of Mr. Bongo, as well as the vast majority of civil society organizations, immediately rallied to the power of General Nguema and praised not a “coup d’état” but a “liberation coup », according to the term dear to the putschists. Mr. Bongo was elected fourteen years ago, after the death in 2009 of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had ruled this small oil-rich Central African country for more than forty-one years.
To remove Ali Bongo, the putschist soldiers cited grossly rigged elections, “irresponsible governance” and power corrupted by the family entourage and close collaborators of the head of state. The latter, the putschists assured, was “manipulated”, since a stroke in 2018, in particular by his wife and one of his sons, both of whom have since been imprisoned and accused of massive embezzlement of public funds, among other things.
According to the “official timeline” set out on Monday, the suggestions of “all Gabonese people” invited to make suggestions over the past month will be synthesized and proposed to the inclusive national dialogue in April 2024.
“Constituent” assembly, new Constitution
“At the beginning of June 2024, the transitional Parliament [appointed in October by President Oligui Nguema]” will transform into a “constituent” Assembly, added Lieutenant-Colonel Manfoumbi Manfoumbi. Between November and December, a draft new Constitution will be submitted to a referendum, he added. “The steps mentioned in this timeline are subject to modification following the results of the inclusive national dialogue,” he however concluded. General Oligui quickly appointed the members of transitional institutions: a government, a National Assembly, a Senate, a Constitutional Court…
A “transitional charter” – Provisional Constitution – prohibits members of the government, presidents of the two chambers and generals who are members of the transitional military committee chaired by the head of state from running in the future presidential election. Except Mr. Oligui Nguema, who in recent days has swapped the uniform that he had never parted with until now for a suit and tie.
Gabon is the third richest country in Africa in per capita income, but a third of the population still lives below the poverty line on less than two euros a day, according to the World Bank, and the country’s immense wealth is concentrated for fifty-five years in the hands of a small elite around the Bongo clan.
