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01/09/2016

Gabon Parliament Set Ablaze After Bongo Was Declared Winner (photo)

Angry protesters torched Gabon's parliament
Wednesday after President Ali Bongo was declared
winner of what he claimed was a "peaceful and
transparent" election, but which the opposition said
was fraudulent.

It only took a few minutes for the announcement to
sink in before several of Libreville's poorer
neighbourhoods erupted in anger, with thousands of
people taking to the streets to express their fury.

According to official results made public shortly
after 1500 GMT, Bongo won Saturday's presidential
poll by just 5,594 votes, taking 49.80 percent to
48.23 percent for his rival Jean Ping, a veteran
diplomat and former top African Union official.

The results will remain "provisional" until they are
approved by the constitutional court.

By nightfall, protesters vented their fury by setting
fire to the parliament building, sending skyward a
plume of flame and black smoke, witnesses and
AFP correspondents said.

Fires were visible in other parts of Libreville and
explosions were heard as protesters faced off
against heavily armed security forces.

"The whole building is catching fire," a man outside
parliament who gave name as Yannick told AFP.

The parliament lies on the same road as the state
TV headquarters, senate, town hall, oil ministry,
several embassies and the French cultural centre.
As soon as Bongo's victory in Saturday's poll was
announced Wednesday, people took to the streets
of the city's slums, chanting "Ali must go."

- Slim margin -
As helicopters flew overhead and smoke rose above
poorer neighbourhoods, soldiers, police and
gendarmes stopped traffic on the main highway
where protestors braved tear gas to set tyres alight.

Protestors shouted, "Jean Ping president!" and "They
stole the election."

Ping, a half Chinese career diplomat has rejected
the results, and before they were announced had
declared it was he who won.

There was also trouble Wednesday in the economic
capital Port Gentil, which saw the worst of the
violence that followed Bongo's 2009 election
victory.

That contested vote followed the death of Bongo's
father, Omar Bongo, who ruled the oil-rich country
for 41 years.

Any appeal by Ping would likely focus on disputed
results in one of the country's nine provinces -- the
Haut-Ogooue, the heartland of Bongo's Teke ethnic
group.

In Saturday's vote, turnout was 59.46 percent
nationwide but soared to 99.93 percent in Haut-
Ogooue, where Bongo won 95.5 percent of votes.
"It's going to be difficult to get people to accept
these results," one member of the electoral
commission confided to AFP, asking not to be
named because of the sensitivity of the subject.

"We've never seen results like these, even during the
father's time," he added.

Opposition delegates in the electoral commission
have vowed to fight for a recount.

- 'Let's change together' -
Ping, the European Union and former colonial power
France have called for voting figures from each of
Gabon's polling stations to be made public to
ensure the credibility of overall result.

In 2009, Bongo was declared winner of the election
after his father's death. In the ensuing clashes
several people were killed, buildings looted and the
French consulate in the economic capital Port Gentil
torched.

EU observers, who were barred from the meeting of
the electoral commission on Wednesday, said the
vote on Saturday was "managed in a way that
lacked transparency".

Joining the EU in pressuring Bongo on Wednesday,
the French foreign ministry called for the electoral
commission to show "transparency and
impartiality".

"Only in this way can the credibility of the results be
guaranteed," a spokesman for the French foreign
ministry on Wednesday.

Gabon is a former French colony which has been hit
by the global slump in the price of crude oil, its
biggest export.

One third of Gabon's population lives in poverty,
despite the country boasting one of Africa's highest
per capita incomes at $8,300 (7,400 euros) thanks
to pumping 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

Bongo, 57, campaigned under the slogan "Let's
change together," playing up the roads and
hospitals built during his first term and stressing
the need to break with the bad old days of
disappearing public funds and dodgy management
of oil revenues.

The campaign period was marked by months of
bitter exchanges between the two camps, including
accusations, and strenuous denials, that Bongo was
born in Nigeria and therefore ineligible to run.

Ping's own roots -- he is Sino-Gabonese -- served
as ammunition for Bongo's camp, which has
suggested he and his son are secretly serving
Chinese interests.

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