The commanding win of junta leader Brice Oligui Nguema in Gabon’s presidential election over the weekend gives him a seven-year mandate to turn the page on more than half a century of father-and-son rule by the Bongo family.

The 50-year-old – who ousted President Ali Bongo in a 2023 coup, then ran for office – will now have to deliver on pledges to diversify an oil-reliant economy and end corruption.

He will also have to show he can break with the administrations he once backed – for all the talk of a fresh start, he is a distant cousin of Ali Bongo.

“My dear compatriots, as I told you during the election campaign – and I repeat – there is no happiness without effort,” Nguema told supporters on Sunday after provisional results showed him with 90.35% of votes cast.

“Tomorrow (Monday) is a workday… Our country is under construction,” he said.

Nguema was widely expected to beat the seven other candidates in the central African nation as he rode a wave of public support for the coup and for his vows to fight graft.

A week after seizing power in 2023, Nguema publicly dressed down the heads of public agencies, ordering them to return any stolen money within 48 hours.

Several corporate executives were arrested in a crackdown and government officials gave testimony to a commission investigating corruption.

“Gabonese tell themselves that someone who works with this much ardour is trying to transform things,” Joseph Tonda, a sociologist at Omar Bongo University in Libreville, said.

Saturday’s election unfolded without the unrest that marred votes in 2016 and 2023 – both elections that Ali Bongo’s critics said were rigged in his favour. Nguema seized power after the 2023 election results came out.

In those earlier contests “we couldn’t even go outside. There were gunshots, the internet was cut and shops were looted,” university student Worah Jean Yves said.

“But this time, everything went very smoothly, without any problems.”

HOPES AND FEARS

Nguema’s most prominent opponent, former Prime Minister Alain Claude Bilie By Nze, got just over 3% of the vote according to the provisional results. He acknowledged his defeat at a press conference on Monday though he said the lopsided outcome raised doubts about the election’s fairness.

Analysts say it remains to be seen whether Nguema’s tenure will mark a final break with the past.

Nguema was aide-de-camp to Omar Bongo, Ali Bongo’s father who ruled for more than four decades until his death in 2009. Nguema was also the commander of Gabon’s Republican Guard under his cousin Ali Bongo.

He was an army general when he seized power and keeps that title – though he has promised to step aside from any military role.

“Many Gabonese hope that this is a really transformational moment for their country,” Rogers Orock, a Gabon expert at Lafayette College in the United States, said.

But he added there was reason to fear that “this new order is old wine – authoritarian despotism that Gabonese have historically had to deal with – in a new bottle”.

Nguema has faced questions about his own finances. A 2020 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, a global network of investigative journalists, found he had bought three properties in the U.S. state of Maryland for a total of more than $1 million in cash.

He declined to respond to questions from OCCRP, saying his private life should be respected, and has not commented further.

Nguema has promised to keep up Gabon’s historically close ties to former colonial ruler France – a markedly different approach from other juntas that have taken power in the region in recent years and ended longstanding defence cooperation with Paris.

Announcing his candidacy last month, Nguema said he dreamt “of a Gabon that rises from the ashes”.

“I am a builder and I need your courage, your force, to build this nation,” he added.

Reuters

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