Bongo will run in August

Gabon’s incumbent president Ali Bongo Ondimba has said that he will run for a third term in elections scheduled to take place in seven weeks.

Les règles

This news is the predictable latest iteration of a political process enshrined in the 2020 constitution: with its five-year mandates for the president, senators, and MPs, but no term-limits. This was a document that:

a.     made its way into force via the proscribed legal steps and is in that way valid but,

b.     lacks the legitimacy that opposition-support or a referendum might have given it.

Gabon’s present, Gabon’s future

Ali Bongo Ondimba has been in power for more than 13 years, having succeeded his father Omar Bongo who governed the country for almost four decades. As such, power is concentrated around the presidency and its networks.

Even so, the violent incidents and deaths that accompanied 2016 elections, the purported 2019 coup attempt, and the lack of inclusion in subsequent political reforms, are all indicative of the political risks that face the country despite Bongo hegemony.

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