PARIS — Gabon’s re-elected President Ali Bongo shrugged off international calls for a recount of last week’s disputed vote, saying it was a matter for the constitutional court to decide.
Opposition leader Jean Ping says the election was a sham, and the European Union has questioned the validity of the results. France, the former colonial ruler once close to Bongo’s father and predecessor, supports the idea of a recount.
The poll and its violent aftermath has brought unwanted international attention to the central African oil producer, which counts Total and Royal Dutch Shell PLC among foreign investors, bringing petrodollars that have flowed mostly to the elite.
Asked in a pre-recorded interview broadcast on Wednesday whether he would permit a recount, Bongo told France’s RTL radio: “What people should be asking me to do is apply the law. I cannot violate the law. As far as a recount is concerned ... that’s done at the level of the Constitutional Court.”
Bongo said that under Gabon’s electoral law, his opponents had until Thursday to lodge their complaints with the court. He said he was preparing his own objections. Ping called on Tuesday for international help, and told Reuters: “Everybody knows the result and everybody knows that Bongo is doing everything not to accept it.”
France has intervened in its former African colonies in the past but has ruled out intervention in Gabon, which has been run by the Bongo family for half a century.
France has a military base in Gabon but relations have soured recently. Gabon recalled its ambassador earlier this year after the French government appeared to question the legitimacy of Bongo’s 2009 election win.
Ping, a former diplomat, has said he has no faith in the constitutional court because of its alleged ties to the Bongo family and said in his interview with Reuters late on Tuesday that a recount under international supervision should be conducted first. — Reuters
