Gabon junta banks on new constitution to regularise rise to power

General Brice Oligui Nguema, the interim president, had touted Saturday’s vote as a sign of the government’s commitment to a democratic transition, tentatively scheduled for 2025.

The junta, which toppled an elected government in a bloodless coup in August 2023, had promised a referendum followed by presidential elections thereafter.

A group of military officials under the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions (CTRI) removed former President Ali Bongo Ondimba from power after he was declared winner of a presidential election in August last year, describing the vote as fraudulent.

Mr Bongo, who had ruled for 14 years before being ousted, had succeeded his father Omar Bongo who reigned for almost 42 years until he died in 2009.

The CTRI then swiftly installed former head of the Republican Guards, an elite unit of the country’s military, Gen Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, as transitional president following the August 30, 2023 bloodless coup.

The junta suspended the constitution and abolished the constitutional and democratic institutions in the country including parliament. It then appointed 98 deputies and 70 senators to a transitional parliament.

Gen Oligui had promised to hand over power to civilians after a two-year rule, but he has not hidden his intensions of transitioning to a civilian ruler after the August 2025 elections. He has promised a “free, fair, transparent and credible elections.”

The new constitution, drafted from a thousand proposals collected during a national dialogue in April, proposes reforms to the legal and political structure.

It includes changes such as the abolition of the post of the prime minister and the introduction of a seven-year presidential term, renewable once, ostensibly to end the concentration of power in the hands of a single individual. It also gives the president the power to dissolve parliament, but he can also be impeached by lawmakers if he violates tenets of the constitution.

The constitution also expands some civil and political liberties while limiting others. It also makes military service compulsory.

Other provisions include the elevation of the soldiers involved in the 2023 coup against President Bongo’s regime to the rank of “heroes”, who will benefit from an amnesty law.

Authorities in the oil-rich country had been crisscrossing towns urging the population to vote “yes” since campaigns were officially launched.

Critics, however say, the new constitution concentrates too much power in the presidency and will not safeguard Gabon from de facto military rule even if elections are eventually held.

- Additional reporting by Reuters