Gabon’s opposition leader Jean Ping has warned that the country faced “long-lasting instability” if the top court rejects his appeal for a recount after his narrow loss in the presidential election to Ali Bongo.
“Yes, I greatly fear that another false step by the Constitutional Court will be the cause of deep and long-lasting instability in Gabon,” Ping told hundreds of supporters in Libreville.
“There is no doubt that if the Constitutional Court ignores the reality of the Gabonese vote, the people, who would have nothing left to lose ... will take the future into their own hands,” said Ping, who continues to refer to himself as “president-elect”.
He insists that he was the winner of the August 27 poll, which, according to provisional results, saw Bongo re-elected by fewer than 6,000 votes, and prompted several days of rioting in the capital.
On Thursday Ping turned to the court charging there were anomalies in the vote count.
The court has 15 days to hand down its ruling.
In particular, Ping is asking for a recount in Haut-Ogooue province, a Bongo family stronghold where the incumbent won more than 95% of the vote on an official turnout of more than 99%.
An EU election observer mission has also stated that there was a “clear anomaly in the final result in Haut-Ogooue”.
Ping admitted that he was “apprehensive” about getting a fair hearing at the court, “which the Gabonese call the Tower of Pisa because it always leans to the side of the ruling power”.
But he added to supporters: “2016 is not 2009”, referring to the last presidential election when the Constitutional Court upheld Bongo’s victory.
The central African nation has been ruled by the Bongo family since 1967.
The rancour sparked by the poll dispute was in further evidence at Ping’s headquarters yesterday as supporters escorted a television journalist from the premises amid accusations that state broadcasters Gabon Television and Gabon24 had been deliberately under-reporting the death toll from recent unrest.
Reporter Jean-Raoul Mbadinga was frogmarched out amid a barrage of insults hurled by hundreds of people who had gathered to hear Ping’s address.
“I came as I do for (covering) Bongo. I am a journalist,” Mbadinga protested.
Ping supporters say state broadcasters have understated the scale of post-poll violence and add that interior ministry figures of just three deaths are highly inaccurate.
“Credible sources tell us there is a freezer box at Oloumi (a Libreville suburb) where bodies have been hidden,” Ping stated.
He also alluded to “a common grave” in the city and claimed that the Gasepga undertakers firm had been refusing to take delivery of any more bodies.
Members of one Libreville family meanwhile told AFP that they had discovered the body of a relative taken by emergency services to the Gasepga morgue.
They said Prosper Mesmain Nang Alongo, a 42-year-old married father of six, had been taken to the morgue in the early hours of September 1, hours after the electoral commission had declared Bongo the election winner.
Alongo’s head showed the impact of a bullet, the family said, while indicating they did not know the exact circumstances in which he died.