Gabon: Back in full light, does Ali Bongo Ondimba prepare 2023?

The head of state is back on the international scene, after two years when he had set back.And he directly takes up the reins of power in Libreville.In his sights, his opponents are convinced: the next presidential election.

In this file

Gabon: After oil, ideas?

C’est à à Glasgow, où se tenait la 26^e Conférence des Nations unies sur le changement climatique (COP26), qu’Ali Bongo Ondimba (ABO) a signé son grand retour sur la scène diplomatique internationale. Certes, les séquelles de l’AVC survenu en octobre 2018 à Riyad en Arabie saoudite obèrent toujours sa mobilité – il n’a visiblement pas retrouvé l’agilité de ses vingt ans –et son élocution. Le président a également perdu de l’embonpoint. Mais il a pris la parole pour plaider la cause des pays africains. On l’a vu échanger, l’air décontracté et badin, avec ses pairs et s’accorder une pause-café, tout sourire, avec ses collaborateurs. ABO semble apprécier son retour dans les hautes sphères de la gouvernance mondiale comme une victoire personnelle et une juste récompense pour tous les efforts de rééducation.

Quelques jours avant la COP26, il s’était rendu fin octobre en Arabie saoudite, où une équipe médicale compétente et réactive était parvenu à stabiliser le patient qu’il fut trois ans plus tôt. Après l’Écosse, il a fait escale au Maroc, au palais de Bouznika, chez son ami le roi Mohammed VI, bienveillant pourvoyeur d’une équipe de praticiens qui prodiguèrent au président gabonais des soins complémentaires grâce auxquels il a pu se relever et marcher de nouveau. Enfin, la tournée d’ABO s’est terminée en France, alliée historique où, à l’occasion du 75^e anniversaire de l’Unesco organisé le 12 novembre à Paris, il a rendu visite à son homologue français, Emmanuel Macron. Ça se voit, Ali aime ça. Le pouvoir est un moteur qui aide à se relever de tout.

A third candidacy in 2023?

A question burns the lips: can ABO show so much voluntarism and appetite to then give up running for a third term as the Constitution allows it?Can he create surprise, make his boxes and leave this palace on the seaside where he spent more than half of his life as son and collaborator of President Omar Bongo Ondimba before becoming the master himself fromfrom 2009?Is it ready to give up a third candidacy to give another the care to preside over Gabon's destinies at the end of the presidential election scheduled for the second half of 2023?No pioneer sign suggests it.

On the other hand, his opponents do not have an illusion. For them, there is no doubt: the president will be a candidate. "Otherwise why would he seek to eliminate some of his competitors by prohibiting Gabonese who does not residing on the national territory at the time of the election to be candidates? Asked a parliamentarian for the opposition. Indeed, according to a draft ordinance adopted by the Gabonese government on September 12, relating to the conditions of eligibility of the President of the Republic and to the incompatibilities with the function: "are eligible for the Presidency of the Republic all the Gabonese of Two sexes, enjoying their civil and political rights […] They must have resided without discontinuity on the national territory at least six months each year, during the last two years preceding the election. If this order is ratified, it will rule out the race one or more political and potential "exiles" candidates for the presidential election.

The virtues of silence

Anyway, if the Gabonese head of state planned to be a candidate for his own succession in 2023, he is careful not to declare it.No one better than he knows the virtues of silence.It was in the mystery of silence that, sick and weakened, he managed to survive in the middle of a ruthless war of the clans at the top of the state.It’s in silence that Ali saves time, put forward his pawns and resumes hand.

A sign of the times, he separated from his own son, Noureddin Bongo Valentin, for whom he had chiseled the strategic post of general coordinator of the presidential affairs.The departure of the one who was considered by some as a putative dolphin has not yet delivered all its secrets.First, it was a surprise for the Gabonese, who know the care put by the president to protect his nuclear family.It is also a mystery to the press, which has always had trouble dealing with the subject relating to the nourredin-ali tandem, this gray area, as delicate as sensitive, mixing private and public life.It is finally a relief for friends of the president's early hour, already mistreated by Brice Laccruche Alihanga (bla, all-powerful director of cabinet between August 2017 and November 2019) and sometimes held at a distance by Noureddin.

Convinced that their champion will go to the polls in 2023, the dignitaries struck with ostracism are tired of gnawing at their brakes and rushing to start again for the reconquest of a few scraps of power."We are waiting for President Ali Bongo Ondimba to give us the signal to start working on the ground," is impatient a former minister."He should remind business not all the elders but those who were his loved ones.We do not do politics with strangers, ”he nuance.

Reprise en main

Internally, the resumption in hand would therefore result in the return to grace of relatives dismissed after the 2016 presidential election. These "unknown" targeted by the elders are installed on all the floors of the presidential and government.According to a former familiar from the "terrace" - this promontory of the palace where the head of state was formerly used to listening to his evening visitors by savoring a cigar - the president should "move the lines if he wantswin the election ”.It remains to find the right time.In the immediate future, we expect the appointment of the High Commissioner of the Republic, a position created by order during the Council of Ministers of September 13, 2021 and that we have a raw time intended for Noureddin.Today, the position sharpens many appetites.

Some press the president so that he reshuffled his cabinet even if, we can see him, he seems to appreciate some members of the team in place, notably his deputy chief of staff, Mohamed Ali Saliou, son of the ImamFrom Libreville and close to the Bongo Ondimba family, or even Jean-Yves Teale, the secretary general of the presidency.Others ask him to make a government adjustment."It would be more effective to revive now to, in particular, draw the consequences of the prefect of the Prime Minister with regard to certain members of her government, like the Minister of Petroleum and Mines, Vincent de Paul Massassa, of that of the habitat, Léon Bonda Balonzi, or those which are estimated in the presidential cabinet that they do not obtain results that meets expectations, "thinks another former minister.

But nothing says that the head of state will listen to his advisers.Ali Bongo Ondimba can also favor stability by keeping the same teams to the presidential election." Why not ?To compensate for the drop in the regime of his commitment to his own campaign, he must adopt a weighted and withdrawn sage posture, reassuring and clairvoyant, "continues a former member of the government.We suspect, the Phoenix did not resurrect to go fishing for carp over the Ogooué.It will be necessary to count with him for the next electoral deadline.