Gabon: Jean Ping claims victory again after EU report

Gabon’s opposition leader Jean Ping says an EU report has confirmed that the presidential election in Gabon was rigged in favour of Ali Bongo Ondimba.

His statement comes after an EU report on Monday agreed that there were irregularities in the August 27 poll.

“We will like the international community especially the African Union, European Union and the United Nations to draw lessons from this report which demonstrates in an unchallenged manner that I, Jean Ping won the presidential election,” the opposition leader said.

Official results by the constitutional council which rejected Jean Ping’s petition indicate that Ali Bongo got 50.6 percent of the votes against 47.2 percent for Jean Ping.

Bongo is however said to have obtained more than 95 percent of the vote on a turnout of more than 99 percent in his home region.

The EU report has proposed eleven urgent recommendations to be taken into consideration before the next parliamentary election scheduled for July 2017.