The coup in Gabon was "a lesser evil" to avoid a "conflagration" in the face of "yet another electoral hold-up", justified Friday at the UN the new prime minister, who will announce a calendar for elections "next week". "I stand before this august Assembly in an unprecedented context for my country, which has gone through fear following a chaotic electoral process that was interrupted by the defense and security forces," Raymond Ndong Sima, appointed two weeks ago by General Brice Oligui Nguema, told the UN platform. who ousted President Ali Bongo Ondimba from power.
He called on the international community not to "pronounce sentences without nuance and make easy amalgams out of tune realities" of the Gabonese political context that "justified this seizure of power" on August 30, after the proclamation of the election of President Bongo. And for him, "to condemn such a process is to maintain that it would have been better to let the clashes take place and come later to count the number of victims, since no one in the opposition, no one was willing to let this umpteenth electoral hold-up take place".
Promise of "new elections"
"The security forces had a choice between preparing to suppress these protests with the risk sooner or later of being prosecuted before international courts because of their responsibilities, or deciding to interrupt a fraudulent process that is dangerous for national cohesion." "They have responsibly chosen the second way to ward off the risk of a fire whose conflagration would have shaken the very foundations of Gabonese society and would not have spared the many foreign populations living in Gabon," he added.
"This bloodless military intervention without any material damage was a lesser evil," he said, describing the scenes of jubilation of the population. Acknowledging, however, that a "status quo" was not the solution, he spoke of reforms and elections "within a reasonable time frame". He indicated that he would announce next week a timetable for consultations with the political class and civil society, as well as the "timetable of the different stages that will lead to new elections".
