Embattled Gabonese President Ali Bongo yesterday accused EU observers who criticized his country’s election of overlooking irregularities in the camp of opposition Gabonese presidential candidate Jean Ping.
On Tuesday, the observer team reported a “clear anomaly” in voting in Haut-Ogooue Province, Bongo’s heartland.
“I would also have liked them to have noted some anomalies in the fiefdom of Mr Ping,” Bongo told France’s RTL radio. “If we’re raising anomalies, we have to be clear, balanced and raise all the anomalies that have been noted.”
Photo: AFP
Bongo, who has been in power since 2009, claimed victory in the Aug. 27 poll by a wafer-thin margin of about 6,000 votes.
The opposition has bitterly contested the vote in Haut-Ogooue, where official results showed turnout at more than 99 percent with 95 percent voting for Bongo.
In their analysis, the EU election monitors said: “The number of non-voters, as well as blank and disqualified votes, reveals a clear anomaly in the final results in Haut-Ogooue.”
Bongo has ducked calls for a recount, saying that only the Gabonese Constitutional Court could order a repeat count.
“I cannot violate the [electoral] law,” he said.
Bongo is under increasing pressure at home and abroad after Gabonese Minister of Justice Seraphin Moundounga resigned on Monday, demanding a recount “polling station by polling station.”
French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has said it would be “wise” to do a recount. Gabon is a former French colony.
Ping has called for a general strike but this appeal seems to have gone largely unheeded.
Several people have been killed in violence triggered by the vote in the oil-rich central African nation, which has been ruled by the Bongo family since 1967.
According to an Agence France-Presse count, the post-election chaos has claimed at least seven lives.
However, Gabonese authorities on Monday said the toll was three killed and 105 wounded, with the government saying some deaths had previously been incorrectly attributed to the clashes.
About 800 people have been arrested in recent days in the capital, with the authorities accusing them of looting, while lawyers say they are being held in “deplorable” conditions.
Gabon, a country about the size of Britain, but with a population of 1.8 million, has only known three presidents since it ceased to be a French colony in 1960.
One-third of its population lives in poverty, even though the country boasts one of Africa’s highest per capita incomes — US$8,300 annually — thanks to oil revenue.
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