Gabon president-elect Ali Bongo appealed for calm on Saturday after protests against his hotly disputed election victory left two people dead and unrest broke out again for a third night running.
“We are dispersing looters using tear gas at Matanda” in the south of Gabon’s second city, Port-Gentil, a military source said.
Looters had also been reported in the east of the city and had set up barricades on main roads to stop police vehicles from patrolling, the source said.
Witnesses, contacted by telephone, said clashes had also taken place in the center of Port-Gentil.
In Libreville, Bongo watched Cameroon defeat Gabon 2-0 in a soccer World Cup qualifying match, while the losing election candidates reiterated their charges that the results of the vote were fixed.
After the game Bongo, whose father, Omar Bongo, ruled the country for 41 years until his death in June, appealed for calm and urged his rivals to take their grievances to court.
“We are a nation of laws and therefore there are institutions in place for those who have complaints,” the former defense minister told Radio France Internationale. “Calm must absolutely return to the entire territory.”
Since the election result was announced on Thursday at least two people have been shot dead in unrest in Port-Gentil where security forces battled looters overnight on Friday to Saturday and a police station was also attacked. A curfew is in place.
A social club run by French oil giant Total in Port-Gentil was torched on Friday, leading the company to move its foreign staff and their families to Libreville.
France, the former colonial power, evacuated most of its citizens out of Port-Gentil after the French consulate there was torched on Thursday, and warned French nationals elsewhere in the country to stay in their homes.
At the football match Bongo wore a Gabon football jersey and even donned yellow shoes in the team color to watch the game. He left 10 minutes before the end.
“Disappointed or afraid? In any case, it was more prudent for him to leave,” one fan named Alain said.
The crowd did not shout political slogans during the match, but a few chanted “Ali, jinx!” as they left the stadium named after Omar Bongo, who was Africa’s longest-serving ruler until his death.
Ali Bongo, 50, was declared winner of the Aug. 30 election with 42 percent of the vote.
Andre Mba Obame, a former interior minister, came in second with 26 percent of votes, followed by main opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou with 25 percent. But all three had proclaimed victory after the polls closed.
“We know that the results announced by the interior minister are false,” former Gabon prime minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong, who had dropped out of the race to back Mba Obame, told a news conference.
Mba Obame, who also attended the news conference, had not been seen in public since an opposition sit-in in front of the electoral commission was broken up by police on Thursday. He declined to make any comment.
Mamboundou has not been seen since he also took part in the Thursday demonstration and his entourage says that he was injured when the protesters were dispersed.
Gabon’s neighbors urged all sides to refrain from stoking unrest.
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