{"id":28877,"date":"2016-09-24T05:46:41","date_gmt":"2016-09-24T05:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/gabon-court-upholds-president-ali-bongo-s\/"},"modified":"2016-09-24T05:46:32","modified_gmt":"2016-09-24T05:46:32","slug":"gabon-court-upholds-president-ali-bongo-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/gabon-court-upholds-president-ali-bongo-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Gabon court upholds President Ali Bongo’s election win"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Gabon’s constitutional court has upheld President’s Ali Bongo’s re-election victory, rejecting an appeal by rival Jean Ping, who had called for a recount over widespread allegations of fraud.}<\/p>\n

The court, while partially changing the results of the close August 27 vote, said Bongo maintained a lead over his former ally-turned-opponent Ping.<\/p>\n

At a televised public hearing overnight in Libreville, in an almost empty room, the court said Bongo had taken 50.66 per cent of the vote against 47.24 per cent for Ping.<\/p>\n

The announcement of Bongo’s victory after the bitterly fought election had sparked days of deadly violence.<\/p>\n

In his first comments after the ruling, Bongo, 57, appealed for “political dialogue” with the opposition to steer the country out of the crisis triggered by the announcement of his victory.<\/p>\n

“I call all political leaders, including the defeated candidates in the August 27 election, for a political dialogue,” Bongo said in a speech broadcast on television.<\/p>\n

In his legal challenge, Ping had asked for a recount in the Bongo family stronghold of Haut-Ogooue province, where the president won more than 95 percent of the votes and turnout was declared to be more than 99 per cent.<\/p>\n

EU observers have said there was a “clear anomaly” in those results.<\/p>\n

“No one can dispute the fact that Jean Ping has roundly won this election,” his spokesman Jean Gaspard Ntoutoume Ayi told AFP after the court announcement, adding that Ping would make a statement on Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Ping, 73, a career diplomat and a former top official at the African Union, had been hoping to end the Bongo family’s 50-year grip on power in the oil-rich country of 1.8 million people.<\/p>\n

The streets of Libreville were empty ahead of the ruling, with residents fearing a new bout of bloodshed.<\/p>\n

With the country in political limbo for nearly a month, concern had been growing that a ruling in favour of Bongo could spark a fresh wave of opposition protests.<\/p>\n

Across Libreville, the atmosphere was on a knife-edge with riot police deployed at key junctions in order to head off any more unrest.<\/p>\n

‘JUDGEMENT DAY’<\/p>\n

Along Libreville’s seafront, trucks carrying paratroopers and soldiers, their weapons at the ready, rumbled alongside cars, shared taxis and armoured vehicles on a road that passes both the court and the presidential palace.<\/p>\n

Officers in riot gear had begun fanning out through the city on Thursday, and by Friday morning, long queues could be seen outside banks and cash machines.<\/p>\n

“Everyone is panicking, everyone is afraid,” explained Jean Rodrigue Boukoumou, a teacher who like many others was waiting to withdraw his money to stock up on food.<\/p>\n

“We want to withdraw our money to be able to buy provisions. We have families to feed if the country descends into chaos,” he told AFP, expressing a widely held fear.<\/p>\n

“Judgement day” blared the headline in one newspaper, while another front page led with: “The hour of the last judgement is upon us.”<\/p>\n

“Until the results are announced, you are requested to avoid going anywhere until further notice,” the French embassy said on its website in a notice to its 10,000-strong community in the country.<\/p>\n

Ping had warned the country could face serious instability if the court rejected his appeal for a recount.<\/p>\n

But the government has warned Ping that he would be held responsible if fresh violence breaks out, and could find himself arrested if he crosses “the red line”.<\/p>\n

Ping has made clear he believes Bongo has the court in his pocket, referring to it as “the Tower of Pisa that always leans the same way”.<\/p>\n

The nation erupted in protest after Bongo was declared the winner following an election mired in allegations of fraud.<\/p>\n

During the ensuing chaos, demonstrators set fire to the parliament and clashed violently with police, who arrested around 1,000 people.<\/p>\n

Opposition figures say “more than 50” people were killed in the violence, but the government gave a figure of three dead.<\/p>\n

\"Gabonese<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Gabon’s constitutional court has upheld President’s Ali Bongo’s re-election victory, rejecting an appeal by rival Jean Ping, who had called for a recount over widespread allegations of fraud.} The court, while partially changing the results of the close August 27 vote, said Bongo maintained a lead over his former ally-turned-opponent Ping. At a televised public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[2461],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-28877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-daily-nation"],"bylines":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2461,"name":"Daily Nation","slug":"daily-nation","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28877\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28877"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=28877"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=28877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}