Gabon court upholds President Ali Bongo's election win

Gabon's Constitutional Court upheld on Friday the election victory of President Ali Bongo, whose family has ruled the central African oil producer for almost a half century, rejecting a challenge by his main opponent.

The Gabonese government has warned opposition leader Jean Ping that he risks arrest if violence resumes following a Constitutional Court ruling on 23 September on the presidential election. However, there were no reports of unrest.

Concern has been growing that the court ruling in favour of Bongo, 57, could prompt more of the unrest the country witnessed in the immediate aftermath of the election.

According to reports, the decision came late in the night after the court re-counted all the votes from the poll. The president called the political leaders and the defeated candidate to work with him, guided by the willingness to place the greatest good to the nation above our own party and individual interests0.

There has been little indication that Ping, who has claimed he won the poll, is ready to enter talks with the government.

"I have to say that it is rare that the choice of reversal [of the vote results] is used", she told the Jeune Afrique weekly on September 15 in a statement that infuriated Ping supporters.

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In his legal challenge, Ping had asked for a recount in the Bongo family stronghold of Haut-Ogooue province, where the president won more than 95% of the votes and turnout was declared to be more than 99%.

Following the chaos, the European Union and Western countries, including the United States and France, urged calm and called on authorities in the former French colony to show more transparency about the election results.

"At every single voting station, the results are read out openly in front of everybody, then everything is tallied, there's a tally sheet, and the actual ballots are burned in front of everybody", explained Moussa-Adamo.

The court's final results indicated that Bongo's margin of victory was in fact larger than previously announced - 50.66 percent of the vote, up from the provisional result of 49.8 percent.

"It is a masquerade".


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