Gabon junta leader faces three others in presidential election

Gabon junta leader, General Brice Oligui Nguema, will face three challengers in next month's presidential election, according to the final list of candidates published on Sunday.

The country’s Minister of the Interior and Security, Hermann Immongault, told the press in Libreville that at the end of the 10-day period for submitting candidacies for the April 12 vote, four contenders were “deemed admissible” from a list of 23 bids received and examined by the National Organisation for the Coordination of Elections and Referendum (CNOCER).

Oligui’s challengers include the former Prime Minister Alain Claude Bilie by Nze, lawyer and tax inspector Joseph Lapensee Essingone and Dr Stephane Germain Iloko Boussengui, a former spokesperson for the Gabonese Democratic Party, the former ruling party.

The Interior minister did not give reasons for the rejection of the other 19 candidates, including Jean Remy Yama, who is backed by a coalition of four political parties and former vice president Pierre Claver Maganga Moussavou.

He said 34 other applicants had withdrawn their candidacy declarations from the CNOCER prior to the March 8 deadline.

According to the country’s electoral code, any person whose candidacy has been rejected may challenge the decision before the Constitutional Court within 72 hours.

Oligui, who led a coup to end 55-year rule of the Bongo dynasty in August 2023, had pledged to hand over power to civilian rule at the end of the transition period.

However, a new electoral code that sets the modalities for the vote adopted by the country’s interim parliament in January gave him the leverage to stand.

Filing his application in Libreville on Saturday, Oligui said he was not running under a political party but his newly created “The Builders Movement”—a platform open to political parties, trade unions and youth groups.

“There is no reason for me to create a party. Time does not allow us to do that, but like others I will go in as an independent candidate,” he told reporters after submitting his bid.

“I have set up a platform called ‘The Builders Movement’. Within this platform I invite associations, political parties, unions, youth, intellectual elite and all those who have supported me since the beginning of the transition to join this platform so that together we can build this country and move forward,” he said.

He said his request to give up his military general's uniform during the election period - as required by procedure - had been approved by the Ministry of Defence.

Campaigns for the April 12 election begin on March 29. The election will officially end the military rule in the country since August 2023.