GABON LATEST:FORMER OPPOSITION LEADER APPOINTED INTERIM PM, BONGO FREE TO TRAVEL, PRISONERS FREED

 

FORMER OPPOSITION LEADER APPOINTED INTERIM PM,

BONGO FREE TO TRAVEL, PRISONERS FREED

Gabon’s military government, which seized power in a coup last week, has appointed opposition leader, Raymond Ndong Sima, as the prime minister of its transitional government.

68-year-old Sima is an economist and was an outspoken critic of President Ali Bongo, who was removed by military officers on August 30. He served as Bongo’s prime minister from 2012 to 2014, then resigned and ran against him for president in 2016 and again as part of an opposition coalition this year.

The new military rulers  read a decree on state television on Thursday announcing that Sima had been named prime minister.

The coup leader Nguema has promised economic reforms and said he will organize free and fair elections, though he has not said when.

Abdou Abarry, special representative of the UN secretary-general in Central Africa, met Nguema in Libreville on Wednesday and told him that the United Nations would assist the country as it made a new start.

“Once we know the roadmap, the timetable, once a government will have been appointed, our different agencies will make the necessary contacts and continue to support Gabon,” he said after the meeting, in remarks broadcast on Gabon 24 TV

The coup in Gabon was the eighth in three years in West and Central Africa, though it has been playing out very differently from the most recent other army takeover in Niger.

Unlike Niger, Gabon has not seen an outpouring of anti-French, pro-Russian sentiment, and the generals in charge in Libreville have appeared open to dialogue with international organizations, which their counterparts in Niamey have shunned.

The Central African regional bloc, ECCAS, suspended Gabon on Monday but sent the president of the Central African Republic, Faustin-Archange Touadéra, as its representative to meet Nguema.

Touadéra told reporters he had also met Ali Bongo with Nguema’s permission. He did not disclose details about Bongo’s circumstances or state of mind, saying only that the meeting had been fruitful.

Bongo had been under house arrest after the coup.

The deposed president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, has however been released from house arrest and the military which removed him from power last month has said he is free to travel outside the country for medical treatment anytime he wishes.

The military junta also says it has freed several people held without trial by the government of ousted President Ali Bongo. Included in the release was Jean-Remy Yama, leader of the Coalition of Gabon State Workers Trade Unions, who was detained in February 2022.

This was applauded by Gabonese citizens went into celebration in the streets.

The Military coup ended the Bongo family’s 56-year hold on power.