Gabon an African Comparison for Singapore after LKY
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830...pY2xlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDZ2Fib250b2Nhc3Rm
Gabon to cast first votes after dictator's death
AP
Supporters of Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of former dictator Omar Bongo, leave his AP – Supporters of Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of former dictator Omar Bongo, leave his final presidential campaign …
By YVES LAURENT GOMA and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writers Yves Laurent Goma And Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press Writers – Sun Aug 30, 3:58 am ET
LIBREVILLE, Gabon – For the first time in more than 41 years, Gabonese casting their votes Sunday will not know ahead of time who their next president will be.
Eighteen candidates are vying to replace President Omar Bongo, who died in June after ruling for more than four decades, running as the only candidate in many elections. But some critics say it's too soon to declare democracy in the tiny, oil-rich coastal nation.
In what some are calling a window into the lack of real democratic progress in Africa, the leading contender is Ali Bongo Ondimba — the dead ruler's eldest son. The younger Bongo has put up posters of himself every 30 feet (9 meters) on the capital's main highway and has crisscrossed the heavily forested country in a private jet to campaign.
Still, it's not a foregone conclusion that he will win and for once Gabon's future leader is an open-ended question.
"This is a historic moment. It's the first time since the 1960s that we don't know what the outcome of this election will be. It's also the first time since the 1960s that the name 'Omar Bongo' doesn't appear on the ballot," said Anacle Bissielo, the country's minister of development and a sociology professor at Omar Bongo University in Libreville.
Early Sunday morning, lines of people snaked out of polling stations including at the Kingulele Public School in the capital, where some 200 citizens waited as a military convoy delivered boxes of polling materials. Voters began casting their ballots just after 8 a.m. local time. One of them was 23-year-old Jacques Koumba.
"It's my first time voting and I need to vote," he said. "I need to make up for the past 40 years."
The race is shaping up as a contest between the 50-year-old Ali Bongo and four opposition candidates. They include Pierre Mamboundou, one of the only candidates with no ties to the Bongo regime, making him attractive to those calling for wholesale change.
Mamboundou has been at the vanguard of the country's opposition for 20 years and was at one point exiled to Senegal after the elder Bongo accused him of plotting a coup.
Other leading opposition candidates include Andre Mba Obame, a former interior minister who had been a member of the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party, known by its French acronym PDG. Three days before the election, five other independent candidates stepped down and said they would back Obame.
Also running in the opposition are Cassimir Oye Mba, who competed with Ali Bongo for the nomination as the Gabonese Democratic Party's candidate — then resigned from the party in protest when Bongo won. One of his campaign pledges is to build 100 kilometers (60 miles) of road a year.
In the 1970s, Gabon was a leading oil producer, and the elder Bongo is accused of wasting the country's oil wealth by building vanity projects such as a massive, marbled presidential palace and a little-used trans-Gabon railroad, instead of basic infrastructure.
A third of Gabon's people live in poverty so dire that some residents of the capital, Libreville, dig through the trash dump to feed their children. Much of the country is reachable only by plane, as even major towns are cut off from the capital by thick jungle.
As voters cast their ballots, many worried that the fraud that characterized many of the elder Bongo's elections will taint the current poll. One opposition candidate has even gone on a hunger strike to protest what he calls an "electoral coup d'etat" by Ali Bongo and the ruling party.
Bruno Ben Moubamba, 42, who had to be rushed to the hospital last week after not eating for two weeks, charged that the voter list — topping 816,000 names in a country with a population of 1.5 million — is inflated. Concerned citizens' groups have collected evidence of voters who were issued multiple voter registration cards.
Moubamba said he expects riots if Ali Bongo is declared the winner.
"Ali Bongo can't even win 5 percent of the vote in his native village," he said. "After 41 years, people are tired. They want a change. We are in a situation of latent violence. It's as if the whole country has been drenched in gasoline. All we need is one match."
Election Commission President Renee Aboghe Ella acknowledged that the voter list appears to be inflated, but said safeguards are in place so that people can only vote once, even if they have multiple voter ID cards.
Another concern is that the winner of Sunday's vote will not need to secure more than 50 percent of the vote, a departure from many African political systems.
Ella said the former president was so deeply entrenched in the political landscape that he always got more than 50 percent of the vote. But now with a field of 18 candidates, none of whom have an undisputed majority, he said it's possible that the country's new president will have won with just 10 or 20 percent of the vote.
"It could create a problem of legitimacy," he said. "It's the first time that we find ourselves in this situation."
___
Callimachi reported from Dakar, Senegal.
(This version CORRECTS number of candidates.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090830...pY2xlX3N1bW1hcnlfbGlzdARzbGsDZ2Fib250b2Nhc3Rm
Gabon to cast first votes after dictator's death
AP
Supporters of Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of former dictator Omar Bongo, leave his AP – Supporters of Ali Bongo Ondimba, son of former dictator Omar Bongo, leave his final presidential campaign …
By YVES LAURENT GOMA and RUKMINI CALLIMACHI, Associated Press Writers Yves Laurent Goma And Rukmini Callimachi, Associated Press Writers – Sun Aug 30, 3:58 am ET
LIBREVILLE, Gabon – For the first time in more than 41 years, Gabonese casting their votes Sunday will not know ahead of time who their next president will be.
Eighteen candidates are vying to replace President Omar Bongo, who died in June after ruling for more than four decades, running as the only candidate in many elections. But some critics say it's too soon to declare democracy in the tiny, oil-rich coastal nation.
In what some are calling a window into the lack of real democratic progress in Africa, the leading contender is Ali Bongo Ondimba — the dead ruler's eldest son. The younger Bongo has put up posters of himself every 30 feet (9 meters) on the capital's main highway and has crisscrossed the heavily forested country in a private jet to campaign.
Still, it's not a foregone conclusion that he will win and for once Gabon's future leader is an open-ended question.
"This is a historic moment. It's the first time since the 1960s that we don't know what the outcome of this election will be. It's also the first time since the 1960s that the name 'Omar Bongo' doesn't appear on the ballot," said Anacle Bissielo, the country's minister of development and a sociology professor at Omar Bongo University in Libreville.
Early Sunday morning, lines of people snaked out of polling stations including at the Kingulele Public School in the capital, where some 200 citizens waited as a military convoy delivered boxes of polling materials. Voters began casting their ballots just after 8 a.m. local time. One of them was 23-year-old Jacques Koumba.
"It's my first time voting and I need to vote," he said. "I need to make up for the past 40 years."
The race is shaping up as a contest between the 50-year-old Ali Bongo and four opposition candidates. They include Pierre Mamboundou, one of the only candidates with no ties to the Bongo regime, making him attractive to those calling for wholesale change.
Mamboundou has been at the vanguard of the country's opposition for 20 years and was at one point exiled to Senegal after the elder Bongo accused him of plotting a coup.
Other leading opposition candidates include Andre Mba Obame, a former interior minister who had been a member of the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party, known by its French acronym PDG. Three days before the election, five other independent candidates stepped down and said they would back Obame.
Also running in the opposition are Cassimir Oye Mba, who competed with Ali Bongo for the nomination as the Gabonese Democratic Party's candidate — then resigned from the party in protest when Bongo won. One of his campaign pledges is to build 100 kilometers (60 miles) of road a year.
In the 1970s, Gabon was a leading oil producer, and the elder Bongo is accused of wasting the country's oil wealth by building vanity projects such as a massive, marbled presidential palace and a little-used trans-Gabon railroad, instead of basic infrastructure.
A third of Gabon's people live in poverty so dire that some residents of the capital, Libreville, dig through the trash dump to feed their children. Much of the country is reachable only by plane, as even major towns are cut off from the capital by thick jungle.
As voters cast their ballots, many worried that the fraud that characterized many of the elder Bongo's elections will taint the current poll. One opposition candidate has even gone on a hunger strike to protest what he calls an "electoral coup d'etat" by Ali Bongo and the ruling party.
Bruno Ben Moubamba, 42, who had to be rushed to the hospital last week after not eating for two weeks, charged that the voter list — topping 816,000 names in a country with a population of 1.5 million — is inflated. Concerned citizens' groups have collected evidence of voters who were issued multiple voter registration cards.
Moubamba said he expects riots if Ali Bongo is declared the winner.
"Ali Bongo can't even win 5 percent of the vote in his native village," he said. "After 41 years, people are tired. They want a change. We are in a situation of latent violence. It's as if the whole country has been drenched in gasoline. All we need is one match."
Election Commission President Renee Aboghe Ella acknowledged that the voter list appears to be inflated, but said safeguards are in place so that people can only vote once, even if they have multiple voter ID cards.
Another concern is that the winner of Sunday's vote will not need to secure more than 50 percent of the vote, a departure from many African political systems.
Ella said the former president was so deeply entrenched in the political landscape that he always got more than 50 percent of the vote. But now with a field of 18 candidates, none of whom have an undisputed majority, he said it's possible that the country's new president will have won with just 10 or 20 percent of the vote.
"It could create a problem of legitimacy," he said. "It's the first time that we find ourselves in this situation."
___
Callimachi reported from Dakar, Senegal.
(This version CORRECTS number of candidates.)
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