In Gabon, ten days of political consultations between power and opposition ended on Thursday 23 February. The opposition had called for a dialogue with the authorities to reform the electoral system and avoid new crises like that of 2016. President Bongo had accepted. A number of decisions were adopted.
The negotiations must be used to obtain credible, transparent, and peaceful elections, in the important year 2023 with three elections announced, those of the presidential, the legislative, and the local ones.
Main measures: president, senators, deputies, and local elected officials will be elected for five years, in single-round ballots. But the number of mandates will remain unlimited. These consultations, therefore, come back to certain decisions taken after the electoral crisis of 2016, where the principle of a presidential election in two rounds had for example been adopted.
For Prime Minister Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze, these new resolutions will make it possible to calm the electoral climate: “A one-round election makes it possible to have results very quickly, makes it possible to mobilize the electorate only once, to mobilize the one-time administration. We thought it was good to move our democracy towards a model that carries less risk of open conflict – political, I mean – and that’s the responsibility when you lead. »