Coup in Gabon

[Sir Mohamed]

Apparently another coup in Africa underway.

https://twitter.com/BloombergAfrica/status/1696757085445271631
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1696759991510675577

[PSOL]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

This was essentially a dictatorship, so Gabon might not be losing much here. The guy in charge has been president for 15 years, which doesn’t sound crazy until you realise that he inherited the job from his dad, who was in power for 40 years.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Assuming Wagner isn't involved (which I guess is fair since Gabon is pretty far from their current area of operation and the organization is currently headless) this is probably a lateral move, yeah.

[Agafin]

Jury's still out on whether they will be succesful (there was a failed attempt back in 2019). And no, I don't think Wagner is involved here, like at all, if anything there's a chance that the putschists might be more pro-France than the current president. He (Bongo) for some reason started distancing himself from France despite Gabon being one of the most pro-French former colony along with Ivory Coast. He joined the commonwealth last year afterall which truly rustled some feathers.

I'm now wondering if my country (Cameroon) will send the military to help Bongo. Paul Biya is an even bigger dictator than Bongo and doesn't want to see thee dominoes of coup d'etats start falling in Central Africa like they have in West Africa.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://twitter.com/ChuksEricE/status/1696796834230890676

https://twitter.com/ChuksEricE/status/1696802881016357301

The people like the military

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

The Bongos are long-time kleptocrats (of the pro-Western variety rather than the pro-Russian/Chinese)  and Ali Bongo just secured his "reelection" through blatantly fraudulent means. Given the circumstances this is probably for the best.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

There is of course another country neighbouring Gabon which is a kleptocratic petrostate with relatively high GDP per capita but little broad prosperity and is ruled by a long time dictator who took the job from a relative of his (but is even worse). Here's hoping Obiang is next.

[Agafin]

The Bongos are long-time kleptocrats (of the pro-Western variety rather than the pro-Russian/Chinese)  and Ali Bongo just secured his "reelection" through blatantly fraudulent means. Given the circumstances this is probably for the best.

It's hard to imagine a military coup improving democracy in a country but given that it was the only way to remove the corrupt Bongo regime from power, it indeed might be for the best. I am not at all optimistic though given the track record of military leadership in Africa.

Another thing to note is (as usual when it comes to Africa) that there is a tribal aspect to this whole mess. Bongo comes from an ethnic minority group in the country. No major ethnic group is a majority in Gabon but the Fang are a pretty clear plurality at 32% (far ahead of the next group which has 15% of the population) and they've long being pissed at not being able to elect a president of their tribe for half a century so some might support this coup simply for that reason rather than ideologically.

In fact, Bongo is a minority in more ways than one. He is a muslim in a country that is 80% christian. His father and him were born catholic but they converted to islam some 50 years ago. So I assume that muslims are not very much happy about his ouster since they will probably not be able to get another muslim president (at least, not democratically). Then again, he was very secular so maybe they don't mind.

The biggest potential casualty of this coup might be sexual minorities though. The Bongo family being so pro-French (upto and including Bongo having a french wife) has made them also take much more western-aligned stances on lgbt rights than their neighbouring countries. Gabon reversed a previous ban on same sex relationships in 2020 making it one of the only country in Central or West Africa to do so (other countries in the region have no ban simply because they never really even thought about adding such laws as is the case of Mali but they are obviously very homophobic). There's no way that such a law would be passed without Bongo using his dictatorial powers to whip his party's support given how unpopopular and even taboo same-sex relationships are within the general population. Those are some of the actions that have made some gabonese and africans to see him as a french puppet (at times) and I thus wouldn't be surprised if those pro lgbt laws are the first to go in a future coup government.

[CumbrianLefty]

There is of course another country neighbouring Gabon which is a kleptocratic petrostate with relatively high GDP per capita but little broad prosperity and is ruled by a long time dictator who took the job from a relative of his (but is even worse). Here's hoping Obiang is next.

Obiang is indeed utterly awful, but to claim he is "even worse" than Francisco Macias Nguema (one of THE most notorious dictators in African history) is a bold assertion indeed.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

There is of course another country neighbouring Gabon which is a kleptocratic petrostate with relatively high GDP per capita but little broad prosperity and is ruled by a long time dictator who took the job from a relative of his (but is even worse). Here's hoping Obiang is next.

Obiang is indeed utterly awful, but to claim he is "even worse" than Francisco Macias Nguema (one of THE most notorious dictators in African history) is a bold assertion indeed.

Oh sorry, I must have misworded my post - I meant that he is even worse than the Bongos. He is obviously not worse than his uncle as low a bar as that is.

[Agafin]

Bongo is currently under house arrest. He was allowed to give a speech which he used to call for help from the international community and plead for himself and his family. Interestingly, he spoke in English, that can't be a negligeable detail. His country has french as the official language. Does he suspect foul play by France? Or is it just occam's razor (using the language he believes most people in the World can understand)?

https://twitter.com/AfricaFactsZone/status/1696891251642036309

[ꙮ]

Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.

[It’s so Joever]

Everybody liked that.

[Coldstream]

The stage is set for Pierre Patrick Aubameyang to sweep in and become president a la George Weah.

Aubameyang is the only Gabonese person not named Bongo I’ve heard of.

[CumbrianLefty]

That it happened just days after his "re-election" is the genuine "chef's kiss" aspect to it.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

yeah, dude was pretty blatantly rigging elections in his favor.

2016 was extremely obvious. He won by less than 1000 votes nationwide, while his home region had a margin of 95.5% for him and 99.9% turnout. Totally legit, guys

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

yeah, dude was pretty blatantly rigging elections in his favor.

2016 was extremely obvious. He won by less than 1000 votes nationwide, while his home region had a margin of 95.5% for him and 99.9% turnout. Totally legit, guys

Rigging an election so that it would have been flipped if not for the home state boost is the sort of thing an Atlas dictator would do. The one-party states need to step up their games.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

yeah, dude was pretty blatantly rigging elections in his favor.

2016 was extremely obvious. He won by less than 1000 votes nationwide, while his home region had a margin of 95.5% for him and 99.9% turnout. Totally legit, guys

Rigging an election so that it would have been flipped if not for the home state boost is the sort of thing an Atlas dictator would do. The one-party states need to step up their games.

That's an only 5/10 job. No mega-coattails spreading into neighboring areas? Sad.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I’m sure he has a nice exile in Paris to look forward to.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

That it happened just days after his "re-election" is the genuine "chef's kiss" aspect to it.

Minutes. The "election" was a few days beforehand but it took several days to "announce" the "results" and once they did he was out within the half-hour.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

yeah, dude was pretty blatantly rigging elections in his favor.

2016 was extremely obvious. He won by less than 1000 votes nationwide, while his home region had a margin of 95.5% for him and 99.9% turnout. Totally legit, guys

Rigging an election so that it would have been flipped if not for the home state boost is the sort of thing an Atlas dictator would do. The one-party states need to step up their games.

That's an only 5/10 job. No mega-coattails spreading into neighboring areas? Sad.

2016 kind of killed the idea that you always have to have a home turf advantage in an election when Trump won with 9.7% of the vote in his home county.

[Agafin]

The opposition candidate (Albert Ondo Ossa) who is believed to have truthfully won the election is not happy with the way things are going. It was predictable though, even with the best intentions, these soldiers don't do these risky coups to just happily hand over power to the rightly elected candidate. Best case scenario is a short transition under military rule followed by free and fair elections. Given history, I'm not holding my breath though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

yeah, dude was pretty blatantly rigging elections in his favor.

2016 was extremely obvious. He won by less than 1000 votes nationwide, while his home region had a margin of 95.5% for him and 99.9% turnout. Totally legit, guys

Rigging an election so that it would have been flipped if not for the home state boost is the sort of thing an Atlas dictator would do. The one-party states need to step up their games.

That's an only 5/10 job. No mega-coattails spreading into neighboring areas? Sad.

You sure about that?



Those light green provinces sure look like megacoattails from Haut-Ogooué to me!

[Cassius]

The gold standard for psephologically (if not actually) credible election rigging these days has to go to Zimbabwe.