Gabon: Oligui Nguema clinches a landslide win

Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the military general who led the 2023 coup in Gabon, has been officially declared the winner of the country’s presidential election with an overwhelming 90.35% of the vote, according to provisional results announced by the electoral commission.

“Elected, with the absolute majority of this vote, with 575,222 votes, or 90.35%, Mr. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema. Thank you,” said Interior Minister and head of the electoral commission Hermann Immongault in a nationally televised announcement on Sunday.

Oligui Nguema, 50, defeated seven other candidates in the race, including former Prime Minister Alain Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who garnered just 3% of the votes. The announcement comes with some vote counts still to be confirmed, though the result marks a resounding mandate for the transitional leader who took power following the ousting of President Ali Bongo Ondimba.

The election saw a high turnout of 87.21%, with around 920,000 registered voters — including more than 28,000 abroad — casting their ballots across over 3,000 polling stations.

Oligui Nguema, a former head of the Republican Guard, assumed the role of transitional president after leading the coup that ended the decades-long rule of the Bongo family. The dynasty had held power in the oil-rich Central African nation for over 50 years, facing longstanding accusations of corruption and economic mismanagement.

Critics of the Bongo regime accused the ruling family of amassing personal wealth from Gabon’s oil revenues while a significant portion of the population continued to live in poverty.