Gabon - presidential election

Candidates pull out of Gabon election to back independent

Article published on the 2009-08-28 Latest update 2009-08-28 15:39 TU

Andre Mba Obame
(Photo: gaboneco.com)

A number of the 23 candidates running in Sunday’s presidential election in Gabon have pulled out of the race to back Andre Mba Obame, a former interior minister who is running as an independent candidate. The first election in the country in over 40 years will be to pick a successor to Omar Bongo Ondimba, Africa's longest sitting president, who died in June.

However, there is some confusion as to exactly how many have pulled out.

A statement was released early on Friday saying that 11 candidates had chosen Obame through a secret vote at an overnight meeting presided by candidate and former Prime Minsiter Jean Eyéghé Ndong.

Among the eleven reported to be backing Obame were Ndong and a former Minister of Mines, Oil and Hydrocarbons, Casimir Oye Mba, who was seen as a frontrunner.

That left 12 candidates still in the race, including Bongo’s son, Ali Bongo Ondimba, who is backed by the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party.

However, reports from Gabon now claim that four of the 11, including Casimir Oye Mba, have since denied pulling out of the race.

"I am and I remain a candidate in Sunday's presidential poll," said Oye Mba in a statement. "I'm pursuing my campaign like I began it."

Three other presidential hopefuls - Victoire Lasseni Duboze, Bruno Ben Moubamba and Jules Aristide Bourdes Ogouliguende - also denounced their inclusion in the statement.

Several missions of observers have arrived in Gabon ahead of Sunday’s vote, including a dozen people from the Economic Community Of West African States.

The government has set up a security plan for the nearly 3,000 polling stations and has told voters to return home after voting to avoid large public gatherings.

"Security will be tight where it is important, that is in the cities, but in all the rural areas which it is rather sleepy and where protests can't really form, security will be looser," says Douglas Yates, a Gabon analyst at the American graduate school in Paris.

"Of course in safe PDG districts there will be a very different climate - it is the big cities that we are looking at."

Journalists have been banned from polling stations except when certain well-known people go to cast their ballots.

A government statement distributed Thursday said journalists will not be allowed to “remain permanently” in polling stations, and announced that “only public media will be authorised to officially communicate the results based on information provided by the Interior Ministry.”

The Gabonese media observatory, Ogam, denounced Thursday the restrictions as a threat to press freedom.

Some 813,000 of the country’s 1.5 million people are registered to vote.