Gabon’s Brice Oligui Nguema will try to ride the advantages of incumbency and a popular crackdown on corruption to make the jump from junta leader to democratically-elected president in an election scheduled for April 12.
The 50-year-old general seized power in the oil-producing Central African country in an August 2023 coup against his distant cousin President Ali Bongo, one of eight successful putsches in West and Central African countries since 2020.
He promised in the days after the coup to hand over power to civilians in a transition back to constitutional rule but declared his candidacy for president last month.
Nguema is favoured to win the eight-candidate race, in which his main challenger is seen as Alain Claude Bilie By Nze, Bongo’s last prime minister.
The coup was largely welcomed by Gabonese tired of 56 years of rule by Ali Bongo and his father, Omar, during which the country emerged as one of Africa’s leading oil producers but poverty remiained widespread.
A new constitution championed by Nguema was approved with 92% of the vote last November, and his very public crackdown on corruption is widely viewed as popular.
“Gabonese tell themselves that someone who works with this much ardour is trying to transform things,” said Joseph Tonda, sociologist at Omar Bongo University in Libreville, adding that Nguemawell-placed to win.
Yet Rogers Orock, a Gabon expert at Lafayette College in the United States, said it was doubtful the election would be fair, and that the true depth of Nguema’s reforms would be visible after his term begins.
“The question is how far-reaching he will be willing to take these changes forward once he has fully transitioned from a military ruler to a civilian president,” he said.
Reuters/Shakirat Sadiq
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