Citizens have showed support for officers of the Gabonese military who announced a take-over of government from President Ali Ondimba Bongo moments after he was declared winner of a hotly contested presidential election.

The military coup announced in Gabon on Wednesday has terminated a single-family government of the central African country which had been in power since the 1960s.

The election result would have ushered in Bongo’s third term. He had been president since 2009.

High ranking military officers made an appearance on national television early Wednesday to read a statement announcing the seizure of power, according to Reuters.

“In the name of the Gabonese people… we have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime,” the officers said in a statement.

The officers introduced themselves as members of the Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions. The state institutions that stood dissolved, according to them, included the Senate, the National Assembly, the Constitutional Court and the country’s electoral body.

Some soldiers had previously orchestrated a failed coup on January 7, 2019. Then, the putschists claimed that the medically ill Bongo had become unfit to continue to lead Gabon.

Since August 2020, there have been confirmed coup attempts in The Gambia and Guinea-Bissau; and successful coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Sudan. Gabon has now joined the list of African countries taken over by military intervention.

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ABOUT THE BONGO FAMILY

Ali Bongo was born in Congo-Brazzaville and raised in France. He studied law and became active in national politics in 1983 upon his election into Parti Démocratique Gabonais (PDG) Central Committee in 1983.

His father, Omar Bongo, was president of Gabon from 1967 till his death in 2009.

The younger Bongo served within the party in different capacities and was once his father’s Personal Representative to the party. In 2003, party members elected him as Deputy President.

He proceeded to serve in the central government as a minister heading various ministries while his father was president of the country. Other roles he held before becoming president in 2009 were: Minister of State for National Defence and Coordinator-General of Youth for his father’s reelection campaign.

At the same time he was elected into the country’s national legislature in 2006. He doubled as the minister of defence.

By the time his father died of colorectal cancer on June 8, 2009 at Quiron Clinic in Barcelona, Spain, after a 42-year-long grip on the country’s national affairs, Bongo was chosen as the consensus candidate of the PDG among a pool of ten candidates jostling to succeed the dead president.

In an election that followed, he polled a controversial 42 percent of total votes cast. The opposition party protested against the outcome, leading to a recount by the Constitutional Court. After the recount, his votes dropped to 41.79 percent and the court confirmed him again.

One of his fellow contenders was Pascaline Mferri Bongo, his sister, who was then Director of Presidential Cabinet.

In the days leading to the recent presidential vote, the government of Gabon had shutdown the internet and imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew, claiming it was necessary to preserve public safety and check the spread of misinformation.

Contrary to the norm, the government also prevented international coverage of the poll by foreign observers and news outfits. This has put credibility questions on the outcome of the election in which Bongo was said to have won by 64.27 percent while Albert Ondo Ossa, his major opponent, had 30.77 percent.

The Bongo family had controlled the country for 56 years. In October 2021, Bongo was named in the Pandora Papers. The family has been accused of holding on to political power for their own benefit.

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REACTIONS TO WEDNESDAY’S COUP

FIJ has seen videos that showed citizens hailing soldiers and waving the Gabonese flag in Libreville after Wednesday’s coup.

“We are behind you,” the crowd told the military officials as they drove through Gabon’s capital city.

“The Gabonese army has finally assumed its responsibilities. End of the Bongo-PDG regime. This process must now go all the way, that is to say the restoration of the dignity and full sovereignty of the people,” Laurence Ndong, a researcher living in France but with ties to Gabon, posted on Wednesday.

The African Union had not released an official statement about the coup in Gabon at press time.