Gabon awaits results of first legislative and local elections since 2023 coup

Gabon is awaiting election results on Monday that could prove crucial for the leadership of General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema.

More than 900,000 Gabonese were called to the polls on Saturday, in the country’s first legislative and local elections since a 2023 military coup toppled the Bongo dynasty.

Voters were asked to elect 145 parliament members as well as local councillors, who will in turn indirectly elect senators, mayors and president of regional assemblies.

Polls closed on Saturday evening, with vote counting beginning immediately after. Observers were allowed to watch the operations.

Initial results were still pending in the early hours of Monday morning.

The vote unfolded mostly peacefully. Just in the commune of Ntoum, a suburb of Libreville, voting was canceled in one constituency because of tensions between candidates.

The election took place six months after Gabonese citizens overwhelmingly elected military junta leader Brice Oligui Nguema as their new president.

The legislative election will determine whether the leader will be able to rely on a parliamentary majority going forward.

The main parties in the running are the Gabonese Democratic Party — the former ruling party that won every political election since it was founded in 1968, until it was overthrown in 2023 — and the Democratic Union of Builders (UDB), which was founded only three months ago by Oligui Nguema. Several small, underfunded parties have also nominated candidates.

A second round of the election is scheduled for 11 October in constituencies where no candidate has obtained an absolute majority in the first round.