Gabon Presidential elections are only few days away as President Ali Bongo and top opposition candidate Albert Ondo Ossa, make final runs as campaign ends on Friday.
Six out of 18 opposition parties threw their support behind a joint candidate in a bid to prevent Bongo’s third-term bid. It will also mark the end of his family’s tight grip on power for 56 years.
Bongo has flagged off his re-election campaign in the country’s remote areas towards the forthcoming election.
This is coming amidst claims from opposition parties that Bongo has neither the track record nor strength required to fulfill the electoral promises he has made.
The rainforest nation is slated to hold its presidential, parliamentary, and local elections on August 26.
Detractors claim Bongo has done little to properly utilise the oil wealth of the Central African State, leaving most of its 2.3 million population in hardship, with growing questions about his fitness to lead after he suffered a stroke in 2018.
The 64-year-old has repeatedly tried to refute the claims during his campaign across the country, with more promises of public school fees cut, increased family subsidies, and more.
Note that Bongo has put up a frequent and confident appearance on TV in recent times rather than the usual weak and rare appearance after his illness.
Bongo said at a Monday rally, “We will win it, because I have a vision … of what the future of Gabon should be. I heard you. I know where your priorities are. I know where you want us to go all out.”
His top opposition, a 69-year-old academician, was selected as a joint candidate by a six-party alliance on Friday, exactly seven days before the polls.
“We have to manage the country differently. Our youth has the right to have something else, especially in this country of such immeasurable wealth.” Ossa stated after he won the joint nomination.
Ossa’s campaign has focused on Gabon’s need for a better country and improved economic opportunities amidst the country’s growing unemployment rate.
A political analyst at the National Center for Scientific and Technological Research in the Gabon’s Libreville, Modeste Abagha, has said Ossa’s will likely challenge any indication of electoral irregularity.
He added that “We’re going into the unknown, as Albert Ondo Ossa is very cantankerous,” so “he won’t be robbed of victory … We are not heading towards a peaceful tomorrow if the ballot does not take place as it should.”
The president’s campaign team has positioned him as favourite for the seat, although no poll has been conducted.
Concerns have been raised by the opposition over a single ballot system recently signed that allows voters pick both presidential candidate and parliamentarians from the same party.
A defeat for Gabon’s president can bring his desirous environmental agenda to an end. The plan has continuously protected the country’s area of the Congo basin rainforest, thereby reducing global warming and pollution as one of the world’s main absorber of carbon dioxide.
The voice of peace has been vocal across the streets of Gabon’s capital Libreville in campaigning is set to be concluded on Friday.
“His father left us a catastrophic country. He too in 14 years has done nothing. That’s why I will vote against him,” a city council worker, Gaetan Moussavou, said.
However a first-time voter, Alban Mpiga, had said Bongo was suitable for the job.
“If he had not had the illness that we all know about, I think that today we would be further ahead in terms of development.” Mpiga said.