2 December 2011
Gabon’s most prominent opposition figure warned Friday that legislative elections to be held on December 17 would not be fair and would fail to interest voters.
“The elections won’t be credible. That’s if they are held at all. I don’t see turnout topping 20 percent. It’ll be worthless, people won’t show up,” said Andre Mba Obame, who is currently in South Africa for medical treatment.
“What credibility can an election with no opposition have?” the 54-year-old Mba Obame, whose National Union party was officially dissolved by the regime last year, said in a phone interview with AFP.
Mba Obame had proclaimed himself president following the August 2009 presidential election which he claimed Ali Bongo Ondimba rigged to ensure he would succeed his father, who died months earlier after 42 years in power.
Mba Obame did not say whether he would be back in the oil-rich former French colony in time for the vote.
Former prime minister Jean Eyeghe Ndong, now an opposition leader, last month urged voters to stay at home on election day, denouncing the lack of biometric voter registration machinery.
Another leader representing 13 opposition groups had also called for any election to be boycotted until biometric registration was introduced to improve the vote’s transparency. – ANP/AFP
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