A group of senior Gabonese military officers appeared on national television early Wednesday, claiming to have taken power, minutes after the state election body announced President Ali Bongo had won a third term.
The officers said they represented all security and defence forces in the Central African nation, adding that the election results were cancelled, all borders closed until further notice and state institutions dissolved.
There was no immediate comment from the government of the OPEC member and no immediate reports on the whereabouts of Bongo, who was last seen in public when he cast his vote in the election on Saturday.
The servicemen introduced themselves as members of “The Committee of Transition and the Restoration of Institutions”.
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The state institutions they declared dissolved included the government, the senate, the national assembly, the constitutional court and the election body.
If successful, the coup would represent the eighth in West and Central Africa since 2020.
Coups in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Niger have undermined democratic progress in recent years.
Tensions were running high in Gabon amid fears of unrest after Saturday’s presidential, parliamentary, and legislative vote, which saw Bongo seeking to extend his family’s 56-year grip on power while the opposition pushed for change in the oil and cocoa-rich but poverty-stricken nation.
The Gabonese Election Centre said Bongo had secured 64.27 percent of the vote compared with 30.77 percent for his main challenger Albert Ondo Ossa, after a process beset by delays.
On Saturday, the opposition camp said the election was a “fraud orchestrated by Ali Bongo and his supporters” after the internet was cut and a curfew imposed. French media outlets France 24, RFI and TV5 Monde were also banned, accused of “a lack of objectivity and balance … in connection with the current general elections”, the government said.
A lack of international observers, the suspension of some foreign broadcasts, and the authorities’ decision to cut internet service and impose a night-time curfew nationwide after the poll had raised concerns about the transparency of the electoral process.
Bongo was the candidate for the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), the party founded by his father, Omar Bongo, who led Gabon from 1967 to 2009. After his death, his son, then the defence minister, took his place as president and has been in power ever since.
Editor Oloyede Oworu
