By Ebi Kesiena
Gabon’s main opposition group, Alternance 2023, urged the international community on Friday to encourage the junta that overthrew President Ali Bongo this week to hand power back to civilians.
Military officers seized power in a coup on Wednesday minutes after an announcement that Bongo had secured a third term in an election, ending his family’s nearly 60-year hold on power.
They placed him under house arrest and installed Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema as transitional leader.
Although the move drew cheering crowds onto the streets of the capital, Libreville, the opposition, which says it is the rightful winner of Saturday’s election, has raised objections calling for an immediate return to civilian rule.
Speaking to BBC, Alexandra Pangha, spokesperson for Alternance 2023 leader Albert Ondo Ossa, noted that the democratic order in Gabon is asking the military to give back the power to the civilians.
“We were happy that Ali Bongo was overthrown but we hope that the international community will stand up in favor of the Republic and the democratic order in Gabon by asking the military to give back the power to the civilians,” she said.
Also, she said that the junta’s plan to inaugurate Nguema as head of state on Monday was “absurd.”
Bongo was elected 2009, taking over from his late father who came to power in 1967. Opponents say the family did little to share Gabon’s oil and mining wealth.
However, according to a 2020 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, OCCRP, a global network of investigative journalists, before being detained, the Bongos lived in a luxurious palace overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, own expensive cars and properties in France and the United States, often paid for in cash.
