By Enyichukwu Enemanna
A coalition of six opposition political parties in Gabon have agreed to field a consensus candidate ahead of next week’s presidential election, seeking to challenge incumbent Ali Bongo Ondimba, the head of the coalition, Francois Ndong Obiang, announced on Friday.
Obiang, president of the Alternance 2023 opposition coalition, said the main opposition figures, who were about conducting primary elections to pick their presidential candidates have taken everyone by surprise by choosing a “consensus” candidate.
A former education minister Albert Ondo Ossa was picked by the alliance to unseat Bongo.
The Alternance 2023 which was launched in January has held regular meetings, aiming to establish a joint candidacy, the only way it believes it could galvanise support to retire the incumbent President Bongo from presidential palace.
President Bongo’s family has ruled the oil-rich West African state for 55 years.
“You have before you the consensus candidate”, a 69-year-old Ondo Ossa, in front of the few militants gathered at the headquarters of the opposition Reagir party had declared.
“I’m particularly moved and I’d like to thank all the party presidents”, he added, calling for strong mobilisation ahead of the August 26 polls.
The Gabonese Election Centre had already validated 19 of the 27 candidacy applications received, five more than in 2016.
Ondo Ossa though not largely an accepted candidate had been up against leading rivals including Alexandre Barro Chambrier of the opposition Rally for the Fatherland and Modernity (RPM) party and the National Union’s head Paulette Missambo as well as a former Bongo prime minister Raymond Ndong Sima.
But now the six candidates belonging to the opposition alliance have all undertaken to withdraw their candidacy in favour of the consensus candidate, Ndong Obiang assured.
The 64-year-old President Bongo, who took over from his father Omar Bongo Ondimba in 2009, officially announced in July that he would run again for president.
The president was narrowly re-elected in 2016, with just 5,500 more votes than rival Jean Ping, who claimed the election had been fixed.
