Gabonese military personnel said on Wednesday that they had deposed President Ali Bongo Ondimba in a surprise coup, ending the Bongo family’s 50-year reign over the central African nation.
There were reports of gunfire and joy in the streets of the capital, but the military takeover was strongly denounced globally when men in uniform declared the president’s house arrest on national television.
On state television on Wednesday morning, an unidentified junta official said, “It is brought to the attention of the national and international community that Ali Bongo Ondimba is being kept under house arrest.”
The former president is being treated by “family and doctors,” according to a spokesperson.
According to Agence France-Presse, soldiers in the capital city of Libreville were celebrating coup leader General Brice Oligui Nguema. Soldiers hauled him over their shoulders, chanting “president.”
President Ali Bongo Ondimba, better known as Ali Bongo, had been proclaimed the victor of a controversial election only minutes earlier.
A group proclaimed officers identifying themselves as members of the country’s “defense and security forces” in a broadcast address carried on Gabon24, and CNN first spotted it on X (formerly Twitter).
According to an official, the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions has decided to preserve the peace by ending the existing government “on behalf of the Gabonese people and as a guarantor of the protection of institutions.”
The Gabonese government has yet to react to CNN’s requests for comment, and CNN has been unable to authenticate the film independently.
During the broadcast, a military official threatened to annul election results and block the country’s borders.
The officer declared the dissolution of “all the institutions of the republic,” which included the government, the Senate, the National Assembly, the Constitutional Court, the Economic, Social, and Environmental Council, and the Gabonese Elections Council.
We ask Gabonese citizens, those from neighboring countries who reside there, and the Gabonese diaspora to remain calm.
Following the TV appearance, a Reuters journalist in Libreville reported hearing gunshots.
Videos posted online and provided to CNN show people dancing and celebrating in Gabon’s capital city’s streets.
In a video obtained by CNN, residents of the capital city’s Nzeng Ayong area can be seen chanting “liberated!” and waving the Gabonese flag alongside military trucks.
Critics throughout the globe started to voice out. On Wednesday, the French government’s spokesperson, Olivier Veran, told reporters that France was “strongly opposed” to the “military coup d’etat” in Gabon. Furthermore, he said France was paying “close attention to the evolution of the situation on the ground”. He expressed optimism that “the election results, when they became known, can be respected.”
Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Tunisia, and now Gabon are the nine former French colonies that have experienced coups in the last three years, all of which have delayed democratic growth.
After the country’s military junta gained control in late July, the African Union suspended Niger’s membership in the group of 55 member countries. Niger’s military ruler has urged for a return to democracy within three years, with the transition’s guiding principles to be determined within the next 30 days.
Bongo’s Dominance Period
According to Reuters, Gabon’s electoral commission declared Bongo won the presidency with 64.27% of the vote earlier on Wednesday, after a postponed general election that the opposition called fraudulent.
According to the electoral board, Albert Ondo Ossa, Bongo’s main opponent, won 30.77 percent of the vote. Bongo’s team disregarded Ondo Ossa’s charges of electoral irregularities.
Ali Bongo, 64, was elected after his father, Omar Bongo, who had reigned for almost 42 years, died of a heart attack in a Spanish hospital while being treated for intestinal cancer in 2009.
In 1967, seven years after Gabon’s independence from France, the older Bongo rose to power.
For many years, he ruled the little nation with an iron fist, during which time only his party was legal, and then, eventually, in 1991, all parties became legal, albeit his party still maintained the majority of government seats.
Ali Bongo joined politics in 1981 and served as foreign minister and congressman from 1989 to 1991, according to the website of the Gabonese Embassy in the United States. He was defense minister from 1999 until he is elected president in 2009.
Election squabble
Ali Bongo had 18 opponents in this week’s election; six of them backed Ondo Ossa, a former minister and university professor, to win over voters and narrow the field. Many opponents were pushing for change in the oil-rich but poor nation of 2.3 million people.
Tensions were high after Saturday’s vote, and disruption was expected as a result of international observers’ concerns about a lack of transparency.
The non-profit Reporters Without Borders chastised Gabonese authorities for blocking foreign media from covering the election.
On Wednesday, the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, warned that “if it is confirmed that it is another military coup, it will increase instability in the whole region.”
“It’s an issue that will be put on the table and we will discuss it,” Borrell told reporters before of a European Union defense ministers meeting in Toledo, Spain.
“The entire region, beginning with the Central African Republic, Mali, Burkina Faso, now Niger, and possibly Gabon, is in a very difficult situation,” said Borrell. Defense and Foreign Ministers must thoroughly assess the situation. And how we may improve our foreign policy toward them.”
Bongo’s leadership in Gabon has been repeatedly challenged, thus this is not the first time there has been a power struggle or unrest.
In 2016, protests against Bongo’s questionable re-election to a second term became violent, resulting in the demolition of the parliament building. The government stopped internet access for many days back then.
In 2019, a group of soldiers and military commanders staged a coup by assaulting the offices of state radio and television, kidnapping staff, and declaring themselves to be in control of the nation.
Because of their dissatisfaction with Bongo as president, they promised to “restore democracy” in Gabon, but the Gabonese military forces intervened to put an end to the coup and liberate the detainees. As a result, two soldiers were killed and eight leaders were arrested.
CNN’s Joseph Ataman and Jake Kwon contributed reporting for this story.