GABON’S ELECTIONS WILL TAKE PLACE ON AUGUST 26.

By Tunji Wusu –

Oil-rich Gabon’s presidential, legislative, and local elections will be held on August 26, the West African country announced Tuesday, with President Ali Bongo Ondimba favored to win against a fragmented opposition.

Bongo has not officially stated whether he would seek for re-election, but he is largely expected to do so.

His powerful Gabonese Democratic Party controls both houses of parliament.

Bongo, 64, succeeded his father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had ruled the country for 41 years, in 2009.

In 2016, the president was re-elected by a mere 5,500 votes over competitor Jean Ping, who claimed the election was rigged.

Bongo suffered a stroke in 2018 and spent months rehabilitating, prompting the opposition to challenge his capacity to lead the country.

The Bongo family has dominated the country for the past 55 years and is referred to as a “dynastic power” by the opposition.

However, the opposition has been unable to settle on a single candidate for the presidential election, allowing 15 contenders to declare their intentions to run.

The Gabonese parliament voted in April to change the constitution, reducing the president’s term from seven to five years.

Sections of the opposition criticized the reforms, particularly the elimination of two rounds of voting, as a means of “facilitating the re-election” of Bongo.

The modifications align all mandates at five years and return all elections to single-round ballots after the recent alterations to the constitution in 2018 established two rounds of voting.