Gabon’s Constitutional Court on Monday confirmed Ali Bongo’s disputed presidential election victory after reviewing challenges from nine candidates, the court president said.
“The election of Mr Ali Bongo Ondimba as president of the Gabonese Republic is confirmed,” Chief Justice Marie Madeleine Mborantsuo said.
The court had studied 11 requests for August’s election, which opponents claim was rigged, to be annulled.
The court, which carried out a vote recount at the end of last month, said Ali Bongo, the son of veteran leader Omar Bongo Ondimba, who died in June after 41 years in power, was the winner of the election with 41.79 percent of the ballot.
In second place with 25.64 percent of the vote was veteran opposition leader Pierre Mamboundou, who originally had been named third place finisher.
In third, was the former second-place contender Andre Mba Obame, with 25.33 percent.
Results announced by the court on Sept. 4 had given Bongo 41.73 percent of the vote followed by Mba Obame with 25.88 percent and Mamboundou with 25.22 percent.
The court rejected 11 requests from nine candidates and one citizen that the election be annulled.
Before the court’s verdict was delivered, Mba Obame began a protest hunger strike, claiming Gabon was the victim of an “electoral coup d’etat,” his supporters said in a statement.
Mba Obame, a former interior minister, said in the statement his hunger strike would continue “for as long as intimidation, force and violence is used as the sole means to settle the serious socio-political crisis Gabon is currently going through.”
“I am ready to sacrifice my life so that Gabon will not sink into dictatorship, civil war and genocide,” he said.
Under the Constitution, the court needed to resolve the electoral dispute by Oct. 20.
After the court’s verdict, Faustin Boukoubi, secretary-general of Ali Bongo’s Gabonese Democratic Party, said he had “a feeling of full satisfaction.”
“Right and the law have prevailed,” he said. “All Gabonese have a president who will get down to all the problems of the Gabonese people and make Gabon into an emerging country.”
When the results of the Aug. 30 election were announced, riots shook the country’s economic capital Port-Gentil early last month. The government said three people were killed, while the opposition spoke of up to 15 deaths.
FOREST SITE: A rescue helicopter spotted the burning fuselage of the plane in a forested area, with rescue personnel saying they saw no evidence of survivors A passenger plane carrying nearly 50 people crashed yesterday in a remote spot in Russia’s far eastern region of Amur, with no immediate signs of survivors, authorities said. The aircraft, a twin-propeller Antonov-24 operated by Angara Airlines, was headed to the town of Tynda from the city of Blagoveshchensk when it disappeared from radar at about 1pm. A rescue helicopter later spotted the burning fuselage of the plane on a forested mountain slope about 16km from Tynda. Videos published by Russian investigators showed what appeared to be columns of smoke billowing from the wreckage of the plane in a dense, forested area. Rescuers in
‘ARBITRARY’ CASE: Former DR Congo president Joseph Kabila has maintained his innocence and called the country’s courts an instrument of oppression Former Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) president Joseph Kabila went on trial in absentia on Friday on charges including treason over alleged support for Rwanda-backed militants, an AFP reporter at the court said. Kabila, who has lived outside the DR Congo for two years, stands accused at a military court of plotting to overthrow the government of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi — a charge that could yield a death sentence. He also faces charges including homicide, torture and rape linked to the anti-government force M23, the charge sheet said. Other charges include “taking part in an insurrection movement,” “crime against the
POINTING FINGERS: The two countries have accused each other of firing first, with Bangkok accusing Phnom Penh of targeting civilian infrastructure, including a hospital Thai acting Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai yesterday warned that cross-border clashes with Cambodia that have uprooted more than 130,000 people “could develop into war,” as the countries traded deadly strikes for a second day. A long-running border dispute erupted into intense fighting with jets, artillery, tanks and ground troops on Thursday, and the UN Security Council was set to hold an emergency meeting on the crisis yesterday. A steady thump of artillery strikes could be heard from the Cambodian side of the border, where the province of Oddar Meanchey reported that one civilian — a 70-year-old man — had been killed and
POLITICAL PATRIARCHS: Recent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia are driven by an escalating feud between rival political families, analysts say The dispute over Thailand and Cambodia’s contested border, which dates back more than a century to disagreements over colonial-era maps, has broken into conflict before. However, the most recent clashes, which erupted on Thursday, have been fueled by another factor: a bitter feud between two powerful political patriarchs. Cambodian Senate President and former prime minister Hun Sen, 72, and former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 76, were once such close friends that they reportedly called one another brothers. Hun Sen has, over the years, supported Thaksin’s family during their long-running power struggle with Thailand’s military. Thaksin and his sister Yingluck stayed