In Gabon, General Oligui promises "more democratic" institutions but without "rushing"

The general who overthrew President Ali Bongo Ondimba in Gabon two days ago promised, Friday, September 1, “more democratic” institutions that respect “human rights”, but without “rush”. General Brice Oligui Nguema is to be sworn in as “transition president” on Monday.

In meetings conducted at a frantic pace with “the living forces of the nation”, parties, the diplomatic corps, international organizations and donors, he insisted on the fact that he wanted to reassure inside as outside the country.

The soldier also targeted “the corruption” of the former power of Mr. Bongo, whose family had ruled this small oil-rich Central African state for more than fifty-five years.

But by promising a new Constitution and a new electoral code, Gabon’s new strongman also closed the door to the main parties of the old opposition who were urging him to return power to civilians. They asked him to entrust it to Albert Ondo Ossa, officially second in the presidential election of August 26, but who claims victory, accusing the old regime of fraud.

The army also says that it carried out its putsch on Wednesday because the results proclaiming Mr. Bongo re-elected had been rigged. The junta blasted the ousted president’s “irresponsible and unpredictable governance”. The general had invited the diplomatic corps and international organizations on Friday, but the countries, Western and African in particular, which had condemned the coup d’etat, did not dispatch their ambassadors but diplomats of lower rank, testified for the Agence France-Presse (AFP) of the participants.

New Constitution promised

The leader of the putsch affirmed that the dissolution of the institutions was “temporary”, ensuring that it was a question of making “more democratic tools”, in particular in “matter of respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy and the rule of law, but also the fight against corruption which has become commonplace in our country”.

In front of civil society, General Oligui, head of the all-powerful praetorian guard of the Bongo family, then promised a new Constitution, and a new electoral code, but without “confusing speed with haste”. “Who goes slow, goes surely,” he said.

Mr. Bongo has been under house arrest in Libreville since the coup. Sylvia Bongo, his wife, Franco-Gabonese, is being held incommunicado, his lawyers said on Friday, announcing that they had filed a complaint in France for arbitrary detention. During a speech on Thursday, but broadcast on Friday by state television, General Oligui lectured more than two hundred Gabonese business leaders, accusing some of having fueled corruption at the top of power.

The glare, the soldier reproached them for a lack of “patriotism”, summoned them to “question themselves” and to “stop” the widespread practice of “overcharging” in contracts with the State, giving rise to kickbacks to senior officials. He waved the threat of prosecution.

“Billions of CFA Francs”

At the same time, public television broadcast images of one of the ousted president’s sons, Noureddin Bongo Valentin, and other young people close to him “and to the first lady”, senior officials in Mr. Bongo’s cabinet, all arrested on the day of the putsch. They were shown in front of trunks, boxes and bags overflowing with wads of banknotes for “billions of CFA francs” (millions of euros).

The putschists accuse them – Noureddin Bongo included – of “high treason”, “massive embezzlement of public funds” and “falsification of the signature” of the head of state. In Paris on Friday, lawyers for former first lady Sylvia Bongo filed a complaint for “arbitrary detention” with another of her sons, Jalil. “She is being held in an undetermined location in Gabon”, assured AFP in Paris Me François Zimeray. Lawyers “require” permission for “visits” from members of the Consulate General of France in Libreville.

Sylvia Bongo and her son Noureddin have been the targets in recent years of accusations from the opposition, civil society and the media claiming that, since a serious stroke in 2018, Ali Bongo has been weakened and “manipulated” by some of his relatives “.

Ali Bongo had been elected in 2009 on the death of his father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had ruled the country for more than forty-one years and was one of the pillars of “Françafrique”, then re-elected with difficulty in 2016, in a election that the opposition already denounced as rigged.