'Unity within armed forces': Gabonese military exhibits united front, 'has effectively taken power'
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Transcript
00:00 begin with the military staging that coup d'etat in Gabon. It follows a disputed result
00:04 in the presidential election at the weekend. This was the image then that the Gabonese
00:08 people saw this Wednesday morning that told them there'd been a forced change of leadership.
00:13 The incumbent president Ali Bongo on Dimba declared himself the winner at the weekend
00:18 in a vote that had no independent monitoring and he immediately imposed an internet shutdown.
00:24 Internet media such as France 24, RFI, TV Saite Monde were also blocked in Gabon for
00:30 talking of the suspicions of electoral fraud. Well our channel has since been reinstated.
00:36 This evening General Brice Oligui Nguema has been named as the transitional leader of Gabon.
00:42 Here at France 24, Cathy Clifford with this.
00:50 General Oligui Nguema has ordered the restoration of the internet and international radio and
00:58 TV channels broadcasting in Gabon. In addition, the president of the transition insists on
01:10 the need to maintain calm and serenity in our beautiful country.
01:19 Let's bring you our first guest for analysis, Nathaniel Powell who examines West Africa
01:24 at Oxford Analytica joins us now. Good evening to you. What's your understanding of the present
01:28 situation in Gabon this evening?
01:30 Hello and thanks for having me on. So at the moment it seems that the junta has effectively
01:38 taken power. There is no counter coup. There doesn't seem to be any opposition within the
01:43 military to the junta itself. And it looks like at least as of this moment that it will
01:51 be difficult for at least using domestic resources for Ali Bango to return to power.
01:58 What do we know about the new people who've taken charge the military junta as could be?
02:04 Right. So they seem to represent different branches of the army, which suggests unity
02:11 within the armed forces. There are rumors, but again, these are unconfirmed and reporting
02:18 is still patchy about the circumstances of the coup. But there may have been disputes
02:23 over patronage networks that are shared between the presidency and the military. But again,
02:30 it's unclear who these may have benefited and what kind of ways in which this could
02:35 have motivated the coup. What does seem to be the case is that the coup makers are really
02:41 riding on Bango's unpopularity, especially in urban areas like Leopoldville and Pochonty
02:49 as a way of justifying and legitimizing their takeover. And another aspect of it is that
02:54 the elections, which were election results which were announced last night or rather
02:59 very early this morning around 4 a.m. gave Bango a victory from the August 26 elections.
03:06 And this contradicted a lot of information that was coming from the Electoral Commission
03:14 that suggested that maybe the opposition was in fact ahead in the votes. So it's conceivable
03:18 that the army saw this as an opportunity to step in and stop a process which would have
03:25 seen Bango elected once again in a situation in which the polls appear to be rigged against
03:32 the opposition. At the same time, the junta is not giving power to the opposition. They're
03:36 taking it themselves. And Guayma himself, as we know from U.S. Treasury documents, has
03:45 considerable real estate holdings in the United States and is connected to the corrupt networks
03:49 that were linked to Ali Bango. So it's unclear whether the junta is going to be much different
03:56 in terms of its governance style than the Bango regime itself. And that's a real open
04:02 question that is going to be hanging over the transition over the next couple of weeks
04:07 and months.
04:08 So essentially this is more of the same, do you think?
04:11 Well that's a real risk. This is essentially a situation of meet the new boss, he's the
04:16 same as the old boss. And he is a cousin of Bango's. The military itself, especially parts
04:23 of the military leadership, have been implicated in corruption scandals in the past. That being
04:27 said, the Bango dynasty, which has been in power from father to son since the 1960s to
04:33 1967, has generated enormous amounts of unpopularity in the country. So the junta does have an
04:40 opportunity if it so chooses to use this grace period, the honeymoon period, that will certainly
04:46 benefit from, to deliver a properly democratic transition. And unfortunately, juntas across
04:53 the region tend not to do this. They tend to want to stay in power and drag transitions
04:57 out. And I guess that would be the baseline expectation, that this junta is going to be
05:01 doing the same thing. But there's always room for surprise and hope that they will look
05:06 for a rapid and democratic transition process that restores constitutional rule and delivers
05:13 Gabon to the hands of a civilian elected president.
05:15 Nathaniel Powell, West Africa analyst at Oxford Analytica. Thank you, sir, for joining us.
05:20 Thank you for sharing that analysis with us.