Last Wednesday, the military seized power in the Central African state of Gabon and placed the President Ali Bongo under house arrest. This followed the announcement by the election body that Bongo won a third term in office in a disputed vote. The United Nations, the African Union and France have condemned the coup, while China and Russia expressed the hope for a swift return to stability. The United States considers the situation deeply worrying.
Bongo came to power in 2009, following the death of his father who ruled Gabon with an iron fist from 1967. Since then, Bongo has been accused of electoral fraud and corruption. In 2016, violent unrest broke out after he was declared the winner of the disputed election of that year. He also survived a foiled coup attempt in 2019. In 2007, a French financial police investigation found that the Bongos owned 39 properties in France, 70 bank accounts, and nine luxury cars worth 1.5 million euros. Critics argue that the Bongo family has done little to share the nation’s oil and mining wealth with its 2.3 million people. Gabon is one of the richest countries in Africa in terms of GDP per capita, due mainly to oil revenues which account for 60 percent of the country’s total revenues. However, a third of the population still lives below the poverty line of US$5.50 per day, the threshold for upper-middle income countries. See https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/31/africa/gabon-military-coup-explainer-intl-hnk/index.html#:~:text=A%20military%20coup%20thrust%20the,winner%20of%20a%20contested%20election.