GABON: NOT A MONARCH BUT A VILLAGE CHIEF
COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 11 Sep 2009
The election this September to the presidency of Gabon of Ali Ben Bongo, son of the late President, Omar Bongo, came as no great surprise. He had been prepared for the office for the last 20 years. Ali Ben Bongo became Foreign Minister when he was 29 and then since 1999 had the key position of Minister of Defense controlling the network of Army and Militia posts throughout the country. His only real rival for the presidency was his sister Pascaline who headed her father’s secretariat and who is married to the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Paul Tongire.
The Constitution of Gabon, based on that of France, stipulated that elections should be held within 45 days after the death of a president, the interim administration being held by the President of the Senate, Mme Rose Rogombe. Although some political figures called for a postponement of the elections so that there could be a real campaign, the constitutional provisions were followed, and the election was held within the 45 days from Omar Bongo’s death in a hospital in Barcelona, Spain on 8 June 2009.
It was difficult to organize a real multi-party campaign because there were no political parties — only political factions based on personalities with a certain amount of ethnic backing. Some 23 people presented themselves as candidates, few of whom had any following beyond small factions. Only three days before the election, most dropped out of the running, throwing their support to Andre Mba Obame who had the most serious chance of being elected against Ben Bongo.
Mba Obame is a member of the ruling group as former Minister of the Interior and a member of the Fang ethnic group which represents some 35 to 40 percent of the population. (Population figures in Gabon and their ethnic breakdown have always been unclear and manipulated for political reasons.) Pierre Mamboundou was the third candidate with a chance of winning, always in opposition, his power base was the economic center of Port Gentile and the ethnic groups of the costal strip. They are less numerous than the Fang but having been in contact with the Europeans since the mid-1800s form an educated elite.
One of the opposition’s battle cries was “Gabon is not a monarchy!” — there being no reason why a son should take over from his father. However, Omar Bongo was not a monarch but a village chief, and he ran the country as a village chief, without a real political party infrastructure and with loyalty to his person via gifts from oil money.
I had known the late President in 1966 when I was working in Gabon, and he was ‘directeur de cabinet’ — chief administrative officer — of the first President of Gabon, Leon Mba. I was told by a French friend who was an advisor to the President that Bongo was the man to watch and that his power was growing. In 1967, Bongo was made Vice-President, pushing out Paul-Marie Yembit, the then Vice-President. Yembit’s only virtue was that he was a Bapounou and thus from the south of Gabon, a balance for the two strongest figures of the first Gabonese government, the President and the Foreign Minister, Jean-Hilaire Aubame, both members of the northern ethnic group, the Fang.
By 1967, Leon Mba’s physical and mental health was fast declining. He went to Paris where he stayed until his death late in 1967. His last administrative act was to make Bongo Vice-President so that there could be a smooth transition of power. Thus since early 1968, Bongo had been in power, the longest serving African president.
At the time I knew him, his name was Albert, and I have always thought of him as Albert Bongo. We were the same age, born a few months apart. He was young at the time to hold political power in a country where age is respected as a sign of experience and possible wisdom. He became Omar Bongo with a ‘conversion’ to Islam in 1973 on the advice of Colonel Khadafi of Libya — in exchange for cash some say — on the eve of Gabon joining the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). After the 1972 oil crisis, OPEC gained importance in setting the price and production quotas of oil.
Gabonese oil production was growing — the 1970s and early 1980s were the peak years — and Bongo wanted a say in OPEC politics. Since the key OPEC states were Muslim, joining the faith was not bad politics. There is a well-known saying when King Henry IV changed his religion from Protestant to Catholic “Paris is well worth a Mass”. So Albert Bongo could change from Catholic to Muslim to sit at the head table of oil producers. After 2003, when his father’s spirit appeared to him in a dream, he added his father’s name ‘Ondimba’ to Bongo.
Becoming a Muslim was not related to internal Gabonese politics as there are no indigenous Muslims. There is a small population of merchants, usually called ‘Haussas’ after the northern Nigerian ethnic group known as travelling merchants. A few have become wealthy so a mosque was built in the capital, Libreville, but they have no political influence.
Albert Bongo came from the Franceville area on the frontier with the Congo (Brazzaville) and did his education in Brazzaville. His parents were from two small related tribes: the Take and the Obamba so he had no important tribal base on which to build his support. His original advancement in Gabonese political life was largely due to French influence. He realized that he had no tribal base on which to call and so friendship with the French advisors to Leon Mba, the officers of the French military stationed in Gabon and the French business milieu was an alternative source of power.
Once solidly in power, Albert Bongo used part of the oil money to build up a fairly large circle of people who supported him such as government ministers, high administrators and army officers, a strategy of ‘buy-and-rule.’ He had learned from Leon Mba how to give government ministries to representatives of different tribal groups so that every important group had a representative in the government.
Bongo had an acute political sense and was able to buy off anyone who might lead an organized opposition. One does not stay over 40 years in power without a coup or widespread unrest unless one has certain political gifts. He had no ideology beyond self interest, but there was no opposition with an ideology either .Thus, he ruled by knowing how the self-interest of others could be manipulated. Will Albert Bongo’s talent of playing one person’s interests against another’s be passed on to his son?
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 11 Sep 2009.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: GABON: NOT A MONARCH BUT A VILLAGE CHIEF, is included. Thank you.
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