In Gabon, the previous transition head, General Brice Oligui Nguema, has been declared the winner of the first presidential election since the coup of 2023. According to preliminary results, he prevailed against seven other candidates with 90.35 percent of the votes, as Interior Minister Hermann Immongault announced. Nguema (50) was considered the clear favorite of the coordination in the forest and oil-rich African coastal country on the equator. More than a year and a half ago, he had cited the bloodless coup against his cousin, President Ali Bongo Ondimba. After the preliminary results, a good 70 percent of the approximately 920,000 registered eligible voters took part. According to national and international observers, the vote was largely peaceful. Putsch was celebrated as a liberation as a liberation of wording bongo family, which had ruled the former French colony in Central Africa since 1967, is accused of massive corruption. Many of the approximately 2.5 million Gaboners, who, despite the country’s largely raw material, live in poverty, had celebrated the coup in August 2023 as a liberation from a kleptocracy. According to the World Bank, almost 40 percent of young people are unemployed. Opponents threw nguema to keep in power. Africa has experienced nine unconstitutional power takeovers by the military since 2020, almost all of them in former French colonies in West and Central Africa. Since then, Mali, Burkina Faso, the Niger and Guinea have ruled military councils with transitional governments that have not yet set elections.
