What do we know about the Gabon military coup?

What do we know about the Gabon military coup: Wednesday, after the Central African state’s election body proclaimed the re-election of President Ali Bongo, military officers declared they had seized power in Gabon. Here is what we currently know:

What do we know about the Gabon military coup?

In the early hours of Wednesday, Gabonese military officers announced on national television that they had seized power less than an hour after the election commission announced that Bongo had won a third term as president.

The opposition had claimed that the election held on August 26 was illegitimate, which Bongo’s campaign denied. However, the absence of international observers, the suspension of some foreign broadcasts, and the authorities’ decision to shut down the internet and impose a nationwide curfew at nighttime have raised concerns about transparency. Citing a lack of electoral credibility, the officers proclaimed the annulment of election results, the closure of Gabon’s borders until further notice, and the dissolution of government institutions.

They claimed to represent all of Gabon’s armed forces and identified themselves as the Committee of Transition and Institutional Restoration.

The group stated in a subsequent televised address that they had placed Bongo under house arrest and detained his son Noureddin Bongo Valentin and others for corruption and treason.

Who is Ali Bongo and what led to his removal?

Following the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who had governed for 42 years, President Ali Bongo, 64, ascended to power in a contentious 2009 election. Ali Bongo’s campaign to preserve oil-producing Gabon’s rainforests and forest elephants, a pillar of his rule, initially raised expectations that he would usher in change in an autocratic region.

He was re-elected in 2016, but his opponents accused him of vote-rigging and violently suppressing protests afterward. In addition, they claim that his family has done little to share the state’s oil and mining fortune with the nearly one-third of Gabon’s 2.3 million poor citizens. On his extensive campaign trail preceding the most recent election, Bongo sought to refute allegations that he was unfit to govern due to a 2018 stroke that required extensive rehabilitation in Morocco.

What is Gabon’s next step?

If effective, the coup in Gabon would end the 56-year rule of the Bongo family. The duration of the transition promised by the military and the officers’ precise plans remain unknown. Since 2020, it would be the eighth rebellion in West and Central Africa. In Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Chad, as well as most recently in Niger, military officers have usurped power, erasing democratic gains made in the 1990s. Brice Oligui Nguema, a senior Gabonese officer, told the French newspaper Le Monde that generals will convene on Wednesday to determine who will lead the transition. On national television, a man in fatigues who resembled Nguema was shown being held aloft by soldiers chanting “Oligui president.”