Gabon’s junta chief Brice Oligui Nguema looked set to romp his way to victory in the first presidential election since he took power in a 2023 coup, state media reported on Sunday.
Nguema, who ended more than five decades of corruption-plagued rule by the Bongo family in August 2023, was “well ahead” in several of the central African country’s provinces, Gabon 24 television said on Sunday morning.
Any victory in Saturday’s vote for the longtime career soldier, who had promised to hand the reins of power back to civilians, was however yet to be confirmed by the interior ministry.
Voters flocked to the ballot boxes to have their say in an election intended to put an end to military rule, with the interior ministry announcing a participation rate of around 87 percent after the polls closed on Saturday evening.
As the ballots were being counted in the night from Saturday to Sunday, a government statement said Gabonese Interior Minister Hermann Immongault would release the provisional results from around 1:30 pm (1230 GMT).
The day after voters poured into polling stations, calm reigned on the streets of the capital Libreville — a contrast with previous elections in 2016 and 2023 marked by tensions and unrest.
“I hadn’t voted in a long time, but this time, I saw a ray or something that made me go out and vote,” 58-year-old Catholic Olivina Migombe told AFP while en route to church on Sunday.
“I believe in change this time,” the professed Oligui voter added.
Whoever wins will have to reckon with the oil-rich country’s litany of problems, from crumbling infrastructure to widespread poverty, all while labouring under a crushing mountain of debt.
If Oligui is elected president “he will have lots of work to do,” Patrick Essono-Mve, a 48-year-old unemployed technician, likewise on his way to mass, told AFP.
Oligui has sought to shed his military strongman image and even temporarily ditched his general’s uniform to run for a seven-year term.
The junta leader has overwhelmingly dominated the campaign, with his seven challengers, led by ousted leader Ali Bongo’s last prime minister, Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze, largely invisible by comparison.
But critics accuse Oligui, who had promised to hand power back to civilians, of failing to move on from the years of plunder of the country’s vast mineral wealth under the Bongos, whom he served for years.
For the first time, foreign and independent media were allowed to film the ballot count.
International observers at polling stations across the country did not notice any major incidents, according to first reports.
In total, some 920,000 voters were called to cast their ballots at 3,037 polling stations, of which 96 were abroad.
In the first results released by state media CTRI News on Sunday morning, Oligui was the overwhelming favourite to win in around 30 polling stations, with some of them returning results of 100 percent of the vote in the junta chief’s favour.
