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MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Sep 13 (IPS) – On 26 August, Gabon went by means of the motions of an election. Official outcomes have been introduced 4 days later, in the midst of the night time, with the nation below curfew. Predictably, incumbent President Ali Bongo, in energy for the reason that demise of his father and predecessor in 2009, was handed a 3rd time period. Fraud allegations have been rife, as in earlier elections. However this time one thing unprecedented occurred: lower than an hour later the army had taken over, and the Bongo household’s 56-year reign had ended.
In Gabon, individuals welcomed the army with open arms, thanking them for liberating them from the authoritarian yoke they’d lived below, most for all their lives. However overturning an oppressive regime isn’t the identical as reaching democratic freedom. Research show that though democracies are sometimes established within the wake of coups, too usually it’s new authoritarian regimes that emerge, bringing even increased ranges of state-sanctioned violence and human rights abuses.
A predatory autocracy
Omar Bongo gained energy in 1967 and saved it for greater than 40 years. He solely began permitting multi-party competitors in 1991, after ensuring his sarcastically named Gabonese Democratic Get together would retain its grip by means of a mixture of patronage and repression.
His son and successor retained the dynasty’s energy with elections stricken by irregularities in 2009 and 2016. In each situations it was broadly believed that Bongo wasn’t the true winner. The structure was repeatedly amended to permit additional phrases and electoral guidelines and timetables have been systematically manipulated.
In 2016, blatant fraud sparked violent protests that have been much more violently repressed. In 2018, Bongo suffered a stroke that took him out of the general public eye for nearly a 12 months, fuelling issues that he is perhaps unfit to rule. However a 2019 tried army coup failed and was followed by a media crackdown, arrests of opposition politicians and a hardening of the Penal Code to criminalise dissent.
Underneath the Bongos’ dynastic reign, corruption, nepotism and predatory elite behaviour have been rampant. A small nation of two.3 million, Gabon has huge oil reserves, accounting for round 60 per cent of its revenues. By way of per capita GDP, it’s considered one of Africa’s richest nations – however a third of its inhabitants is poor, a stark distinction with the incalculable ill-gotten wealth of the Bongo household and their interior circle.
Why now and what subsequent?
The coup was offered as a response to an undoubtedly fraudulent election. Upon seizing energy, the self-appointed ‘Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Establishments’ announced the annulment of the vote and the dissolution of government, legislative, judicial and electoral establishments.
Bongo was positioned below home arrest alongside along with his eldest son and advisor earlier than being launched and allowed to go away the nation on medical grounds. A number of prime officers have been arrested on fees of treason, corruption and varied illicit actions, and enormous portions of money have been reportedly seized from their houses.
Coup chief Normal Brice Oligui Nguema is now the pinnacle of the supposedly transitional junta in energy. He’s assured that the dissolution of establishments is just ‘non permanent’ and that these will probably be made ‘extra democratic’. There’ll be elections, he’s stated, however not too soon. First a brand new structure must be drafted, together with a brand new legal code and electoral laws.
However whereas celebrations broke out within the streets, the international condemnation was swift, beginning with United Nations Secretary-Normal António Guterres. The African Union suspended Gabon till constitutional order is restored, as did the Financial Group of Central African States.
Condemnation got here from the European Union and a number of other of its member states, and the Commonwealth, which Gabon was allowed to join in June 2022 regardless of not complying with minimal democracy and human rights requirements. The president of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, expressed concern in regards to the ‘autocratic contagion’ spreading throughout Africa. Tinubu is at present main efforts by the Financial Group of West African States to reverse the recent coup in Niger.
Some observers argue that this coup is totally different from others in Central and West Africa because it wasn’t primarily based on safety issues however reasonably the absence of democracy, centered on election fraud and the corruption and mismanagement that stopped establishments assembly individuals’s fundamental calls for. That is the place many in Gabonese civil society are taking, putting them at odds with the worldwide establishments they accuse of getting tolerated the Bongos for thus lengthy.
However others disagree, even when they’re completely happy to see the Bongos go. The opposition candidate broadly believed to have been the true election winner, Albert Ondo Ossa, expressed his disappointment at what he described as a ‘palace revolution’ and a ‘household affair’. He’d hoped for a recount, which may have positioned him on the head of a brand new, democratic authorities. What he noticed as an alternative was a transitional authorities that could possibly be seen as a continuation of the ousted regime, not least due to the household hyperlinks between the Bongos and Normal Nguema, additionally the completely happy proprietor of a fortune of unknown origins. A few of the new authorities appointments seem to verify Ossa’s suspicions.
Past its composition, there’s the important thing query of how lengthy this authorities intends to final. The pomp of Nguema’s inauguration ceremony belies its avowedly non permanent tenure.
That is the eighth profitable army coup in West and Central Africa over the previous 4 years. Nowhere have the army retreated to the barracks after implementing what have been invariably described as ‘corrective’ and ‘non permanent’ measures.
On taking on, the army has seized not solely political energy but additionally management of the financial wealth that sustained the Bongo kleptocracy. They’re unlikely to let go willingly, and the longer they keep, the tougher it is going to be to unseat them.
The coup authorities has to date proven a average face, however there’s no assure it will final. If the individuals who took to the streets to have fun the coup in the end accomplish that once more to protest on the lack of actual change, repression will certainly comply with.
The worldwide neighborhood should proceed to induce the army to decide to a plan for a speedy transition to completely democratic rule. In any other case, the hazard is that the Gabonese individuals will merely transfer from one dictatorship to a different, and nothing will stay of that fleeting second when freedom appeared inside attain.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Analysis Specialist, co-director and author for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
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© Inter Press Service (2023) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service