Coup de force in Gabon: Raymond Ndong Sima takes his hat off to the Army

Libreville, Thursday August 31, 2023 (Gabon Info) – For the former Prime Minister and member of the opposition coalition “Alternance 2023”, the interruption by the military of the electoral process was beneficial for the preservation of democracy. The entire analysis of this great Gabonese political figure.

In a democratic regime, we aspire to a political alternation through the ballot box. We rely on impartial institutions whose operating rules are objective. In particular, we are counting on a legal framework for elections that gives everyone the same chances of success. This has not really been the case in recent years, in recent months in our country. The numerous contortions of the code and of the electoral system, despite countless referrals to the constitutional judge, have ended up making intervention by those whose primary mission is to defend the institutions and not to dissolve them inevitable.

Yesterday’s interruption of the electoral process by the defense forces, which has so far passed without bloodshed, and this is to be welcomed, will be a lesser evil to this distortion of the democratic process if:

1. It is part of a limited period of time and aims to put the Constitution flat as well as the whole of the electoral system including the electoral list, the administrative division of the country which balances the territories;
2. The defense forces place their action in an inclusive approach of all political actors in the country to rewrite an electoral framework worthy of a democratic system;
3. The defense forces formally undertake not to take part themselves in the elections that they will organize at the end of this transition period and thus guarantee their transparency and fairness.

Under these three conditions, the intervention since yesterday of the defense forces with the dissolution of all the institutions, the cancellation of the elections whose official results seemed so surprising and the establishment of a Transitional Committee for the Restoration of Institutions could be a lesser evil and a timely opportunity to clean up the country’s political life and resume all the elections that were ultimately overused.

R. Ndong Afterwards

FIN/INFOSGABON/SM/2023

Copyright Infos Gabon