Legitimacy of Gabon's election a 'perfect pretext for the military to step in and oust Ali Bongo'
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Transcript
00:00 Let's get some analysis next on what's happening in Gabon today.
00:04 Nathaniel Powell is a West Africa analyst at Oxford Analytica.
00:09 He joins me on the programme.
00:10 Thanks for speaking to us today, sir.
00:13 What's your best understanding of who is currently in charge in Gabon?
00:17 Right.
00:18 Thanks for having me on the programme.
00:21 At the moment, it seems like the head of the Republican Guard Police, Uligi Gwema, is probably
00:28 the president.
00:29 He did say in an interview that they haven't yet decided who the president is going to
00:32 be.
00:33 But as the highest ranking officer who is involved in the coup, it seems, and again,
00:38 there's a lot of patchy reporting about this, so it's really hard to know what the details
00:41 are.
00:42 It seems like he may take the head spot in whatever junta is created at the end of all
00:48 of this.
00:49 Yes, the army then clearly have seized power here.
00:54 But I'm wondering about the timing, because the Bongo family have ruled Gabon for over
00:59 50 years.
01:00 Why do you think the army decided now's the time for action and not, say, after the election
01:06 in 2016, where there were also allegations of significant corruption?
01:10 Sure.
01:11 I think there's parts of that question that are very difficult to answer.
01:16 But what one can say is, first of all, there has been a recent history of coup attempts,
01:20 right?
01:21 In 2016, there was a coup attempt that was relatively quickly put down.
01:25 Some soldiers seized a radio studio and called upon the population to rise up, and it didn't
01:32 happen.
01:33 This particular coup occurred literally minutes after the announcement of election results,
01:38 which happened at 4 o'clock in the morning, where Bongo was announced that he had won
01:44 the election with 67 percent of the vote.
01:48 There were already allegations of massive rigging in the days leading up to the announcement.
01:53 The election was actually on August 26.
01:55 Since then, there hasn't been any internet.
01:58 International media, including France 24, was banned from broadcasting in the country.
02:03 There were initial results that began appearing in the international media that suggested
02:08 the opposition may have actually been in the lead.
02:11 And this may or may not have been the trigger for the military to step in once the results
02:16 were called for Bongo.
02:18 What is true is that in 2016, Bongo's re-election was almost certainly massively rigged, given
02:27 the closeness of the official numbers and the very strange numbers that appeared out
02:30 of a lot of polling stations, including over 100 percent participation in some areas that
02:35 are Bongo strongholds, which then led to massive protests, which led to deaths as well with
02:42 the repression of those protests.
02:43 So I think there's already an expectation among much of the population, particularly
02:48 in urban areas where the Bongo's are very unpopular, that this election would not be
02:52 legitimate anyway.
02:53 So when the announcement came, this was a perfect pretext or opportunity, or perhaps
03:00 they were genuinely motivated by democratic motives for the military to step in and oust
03:07 Ali Bongo.
03:08 Yeah, sorry.
03:09 Yeah, I just wanted to ask you a bit about the broader regional context here, because
03:13 as we've been talking about all day, this is the eighth coup now in Africa in the past
03:18 three years.
03:19 And it was just one month ago that there was that coup in Niger.
03:22 Now, after that, the West African bloc, ECOWAS, considered intervening militarily.
03:28 It didn't in the end.
03:29 But is this precisely what ECOWAS had feared, that a coup in one country would embolden
03:35 leaders in another?
03:37 Certainly.
03:38 And I would say the ECOWAS intervention has not happened yet, but it is still on the table.
03:44 But Gabon is not part of ECOWAS.
03:45 Gabon is part of a different regional organization and it's part of a different part of the continent.
03:51 And while I'm almost certain that the junta leaders probably took inspiration from the
03:57 wave of coups which have afflicted West Africa, the actual motivations would have been specific
04:02 to Gabon.
04:03 And what the influence that came from the outside may have been the extent to which
04:07 the coup plotters believe they might get away with this, both regionally and internationally.
04:12 And in that sense, they're probably justified in believing that.
04:16 Can I ask you what you made of the fact that Ali Bongo in that video clip we played a short
04:20 while ago spoke in English rather than in French?
04:23 Is that a sign he's trying to reach sort of beyond his historic ally in France?
04:28 Certainly.
04:29 Well, Gabon is the latest member of the Commonwealth.
04:32 And that's been part of Gabon's strategy, is part of Gabon's or Bongo's in particular
04:37 international strategy to multiply its international partnerships.
04:41 So it became a member of the Commonwealth, I want to say, two years ago, three years
04:44 ago.
04:45 And so by speaking in English, he's reaching out to Gabon's international partners who
04:52 are in the English speaking world, but also to Gabon's other partners like China, which
04:57 is Gabon's largest investor.
04:58 Even though it's not an English speaking country, that is the medium of communication between
05:03 Gabonese and Chinese officials.
05:05 So I think it's a way of, it's really directed towards an international audience and asking
05:11 for pressure to be put on the junta to step down and relinquish control back to Bongo.
05:15 That's really interesting.
05:16 Just a final thought from you, sir.
05:18 We've been looking at images of people celebrating in the streets of Libreville today.
05:22 Is it too early to know how much support the coup leaders have in the country?
05:27 Yes and no.
05:29 We know that Bongo was very unpopular, especially in Libreville and Progeny and some other urban
05:36 areas.
05:37 What we don't know is the extent to which this popular support can last.
05:42 You know, juntas have a tendency to try to stay in power despite promises to transition
05:49 to civilian rule.
05:50 Not all of them do, but many do.
05:52 Those who took power, including Oleg Nguema, have worked close to the Bongo clan before
05:58 and are linked to corruption cases.
06:00 So this may simply be a case of, you know, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
06:05 And if that's the case, then they will quickly lose popular support.
06:07 All right.
06:08 Really interesting.
06:09 Thanks for your analysis, Nathaniel Powell for us.
06:11 Thank you.