Gabon needs total recount

Gabon is a small, but oil-rich African country. It has been run by one family for half a century. President Ali Bongo is the immediate successor of his father, Omar Bongo, who ruled the country from 1967 to 2009. The Bongo clan is very rich and well-connected in France, the former colonial power. French troops are still based in the country from where the air force can reach Central African destinations fast. The vast majority of Gabon’s people, however, live in poverty.

Elections were held on Saturday. It took the Election Commission until Wednesday to publish the result, and according to the official data, Bongo beat his opponent Jean Ping by a few thousand votes. This announcement lacks credibility however, not least because Ping was ahead of Bongo in most constituencies, and the difference was supposedly made by a huge turnout and a massive Bongo majority in Bongo’s home region. Protests erupted immediately, with security forces clamping down on Bongo’s opponents.

Unfortunately, this kind of scenario is only too familiar: an incumbent president claims to have prevailed in elections that hardly seem free or fair and goes on to stifle all opposition voices. No doubt, the president intends to keep making sure that his extended family and his cronies benefit from the nation’s natural wealth.

For good reasons, EU observers now demand a total recount of all votes in all constituencies. Indeed, European leaders should insist on clean and democratic governance in a country that is so closely allied to one of its big member nations. As Dominique Johnson spells out in taz, a German newspaper today, EU governments are keen on reducing reasons to flee from African countries – and authoritarian rule is certainly one of the main reasons.