MEETING OF
PARIS
How to get Gabon
out of the crisis?
Political
Group - Civil Society Group - Diaspora Group
June 30 to July
3, 2012
After
the National Conference of 1990, Gabon had experienced the beginning of
democratization by the introduction of multiparty politics, and it was
essential to continue this process in order to build a state of law.
But
one objective observation of the political context of Gabon since 2009 is that
the minimum conditions for an electoral choice by free citizens have never been
achieved after the usurpation of the legitimacy of the people by Ali Bongo
ONDIMBA, who proclaimed himself president of Gabon in 2009.
In
spite of this crisis, and beyond partisan considerations, the Civil Society,
through a Memorandum, Gabonese Diaspora in France by a proposal for joint
consultation in Paris, and representatives of opposition political parties,
with support of these projects, got together to find the root causes of this
situation and find answers suitable to achieve peace and stability in the
country.
Thus,
was held from June 30 to July 3, 2012 in Paris, a meeting of plural opposition
political groups, civil society and the Gabon’s diaspora in France, for a
democratic dialogue open to any citizen of Gabon sure to find a solution to the
crisis that Gabon has been experiencing due to the seizing of the rights of the
people of Gabon by Ali BONGO-ONDIMBA.
I. CONTEXT AND
JUSTIFICATION
On the
political and institutional fronts
The
early presidential election of 30 August 2009 gave the country the opportunity
for a fresh start. September 03, 2009, Jean-François Ndongou, Minister of
Defense and the Interior, of then the Interim Government through the transition
following the death of President Omar Bongo on June 8th 2009, helped
by the defense forces, halted abruptly the electoral process and organized the
installation in power of Ali Bongo Ondimba.
That
Sept. 3, 2009, while candidates in the presidential election expected that the
Plenary Assembly of the Autonomous and Permanent National Electoral Commission
(CENAP), only body competent decision at election time, to complete its work
and report to the Minister of the Interior the results of the election, the
latter (Jean-François Ndongou), escorted by a detachment of paratroopers headed
by Major General Jean Claude ELLA EKOGHA, Chief of Staff of the Gabonese armed
forces, interrupted the work of the CENAP to announce results that have not
been validated. The unusual presence of armed soldiers in the working room of
the Plenary of the National Independent and Permanent Electoral Commission
(CENAP) had neither more nor less objective than the fulfillment of an
electoral coup that Constitutional Court will validate later proclaiming Ali
Bongo Ondimba winner of the election.
The
electoral coup that led to the swearing of Ali Bongo Ondimba October 16, 2009
was made possible by the complicity of men and women who were in charge of many
Institutions of the Republic. The President of the Republic and its Acting
Government, the President of the Constitutional Court, the Chairman of the
National Communications Council and Chairman of the Independent and Permanent
National Electoral Commission which should be the arbiters of the transition,
by their actions and decisions, they have made possible a process of organizing
a succession of monarchical type in Gabon.
From
September 3, 2009, the other candidates in the presidential election showed the
forfeiture to the Constitutional Court and denounced the election coup d’état.
Motions to quash the election of Ali Bongo Ondimba have shown, beyond doubt,
the extent of the fraud orchestrated for his own benefit.
The
contradictory election recounts requested by the applicants, according to the
letter of the proceedings, have never been accepted by the Constitutional
Court.
President
of France (Nicolas Sarkozy), the President of the African Union Commission (Jean
Ping) and the Secretary General of the Organization of the United Nations (Ban
Ki Moon) were formally seized of this situation.
On February
24, 2010, the Memorandum submitted to Nicolas SARKOZY on behalf of the Gabonese
opposition stated: "... the people of Gabon is clearly in favor of change
in his vote of 30 August 2009, an illegitimate power, enjoying a form outside
interference, settled in defiance of the reality of the polls with the
complicity of internal institutions of the Republic and the instrumentalization
of the defense forces and security. "
On July
1st, 2010, the two main opposition groups, the CPPA and the ACR,
addressed to the Secretary General of the UN, a memorandum which stated also
that "Since the death of President Omar Bongo on June 8, 2009 and the
election coup d’état of September 3, 2009 which imposed a monarchical-type
succession in Gabon, the political transition is compromised by the clearly
expressed will of the Parti Démocratique Gabonais (PDG) to confiscate power in
defiance of the rules of the rule of law and the will of the people of Gabon.
"
In
February 2011, civil society has produced a Memorandum on the socio-political
crisis and a study on the analysis of the functioning of republican
institutions. These two (2) contributions have led to the formulation of
thirteen (13) proposals on the restoration of democracy and the rule of law in
Gabon.
Ali
Bongo knows he was not elected and is aware of the challenge to its forfeiture.
His awareness of this uncomfortable situation, to say the least, explains the
systematic use of the army, its permanent presence in the streets of
Libreville, repression and widespread violations of freedoms that can be
observed for about three years in Gabon and that the constitutional amendment
of December 2010, non-consensual and contested by the Opposition, was a major
act of democratic regression.
Since
the electoral coup of September 3, 2009, the opposition parties including the
National Union (Union Nationale) and Civil Society have never recognized the
illegitimate power of Ali Bongo Ondimba. They have said publicly, arguing
methodically about the justification for the rejection. They seized it to
international institutions, and several friendly countries including France. It
is thus an ongoing process.
Indeed,
the political crisis in Gabon is deep. We have rarely seen such a retreat of
democracy and the rule of law. This is particularly evident in the dissolution
of the National Union, the first political force of the opposition, the
organization of political trials against the opposition leaders and civil
society, the prohibition or punishment of any public demonstration or peaceful
march of the opposition or simply citizens to protest against injustice, abuse
by the arbitrary arrests of independent journalists, by the assimilation of the
social demands of students inclinations to political destabilization and by
muscular raids on university campuses by the army or the police followed by
arrests of students, by censorship of the press and broadcast neutral media providing
objective information, by prohibition or limitation of movements (in or out of
the country) of members of the opposition or persons judged as such. This list
of antidemocratic behaviors of Ali Bongo’s regime is of course, not exhaustive.
Changing
the constitution to strengthen the powers and prerogatives of Mr. Ali Bongo
Ondimba, including not limiting presidential terms; the issuance of decrees and
orders drastically reducing the scope of participation of Gabonese in politics
and the rights of opposition; the systematic distortion of the role of the
National Commission responsible for administering the electoral process and
biases of the Constitutional Court are some of the elements contributing to the
regression of democracy in Gabon. Today, almost all power is concentrated in
the hands of one man. The Government of the Republic is deprived of his
prerogatives in favor of newly created agencies and depending only on the
Presidency of the Republic. The “monarchy-sation” of Gabon is on completely!
The
parliamentary elections of December 17, 2011 were boycotted by some opposition
and strongly denounced by civil society. Indeed, after the beginning of 2011
the government was asked by the opposition to increase transparency of the
electoral process through the introduction of biometrics in voter registration
in order to avoid unnecessary post-election wrangling, and the Government responded
to the opposition with the decision that electoral transparency would not be
conceivable before 2013, during local elections. The ruling party PDG has
gained 114 of 120 parliamentary seats. This scandal reinstated the single party
system in the National Assembly where there is only one parliamentary group,
compare to five earlier. The people who followed the boycott slogan of the
opposition and civil society gathered in the movement “Enough of That”
refrained from going to the polls at 92%.
On the economic
and social fronts
The
economic and social situation of Gabon today is characterized by an
impoverishment increasingly growing for much of the population, despite the
importance of its financial resources, and by low attractiveness of the
investment, and a poor quality of growth. Developments noted in the last three
years are quite disturbing in many ways.
According
to the annual report of the National Commission for Fight against Illicit
Enrichment (CNLCEI) of 2010, based on data from Transparency International (TI)
(2010), Gabon was ranked 110th (out of 178 countries evaluated) according to
the barometer of corruption, with a corruption index valued at 2.9 out of 10.
This ranking, which ranks the country among those who record a level of endemic
corruption, is up four spots on the 2009 and is worse than that of 2007 which
placed already Gabon to the 84th place with an index evaluated at 3, 3 of 10
according to the same NGO.
With
regard to fiscal consolidation, announced with fanfare by Ali Bongo, it was
supposed to focus on reducing the lifestyle of the State, Audit of Public service
sector and management of public debt.
While
purporting to reduce the lifestyle of the State, Ali Bongo has performed to
date, hundreds of foreign travel. At a rate of 3 billion CFA francs per trip,
on average. For the years 2009 and 2010 this represented approximately 300
billion CFA francs paid by the taxpayer of Gabon.
While
purporting to reduce the lifestyle of the State, Ali Bongo has offered himself a
mansion in Paris for a staggering 65 billion CFA francs paid by the Treasury,
but not included in the state budget.
While
purporting to reduce the lifestyle of the State, Ali Bongo has offered himself
a fleet of 29 luxury cars for 10 billion CFA francs paid with money from Gabon,
public accounts, but unbudgeted.
While
purporting to reduce the lifestyle of the State, the Government has bought two
successive fleets of luxury cars, in 10 months. A fleet of 4x4 Mitsubishi brand
in November 2009 and a fleet of Mercedes sedans in August 2010 paid with
taxpayer money.
While
purporting to reduce the lifestyle of the state by eliminating some functions
and reducing some expenses, Ali Bongo, at the same time has created other
functions and increased some functional salaries. Finally, the ruling power
took advantage of the fiftieth anniversary of Independence of our country to
engage 63.364 billion CFA francs of lavish spending while only 35 billion were
budgeted.
Regarding
the audit of the Public service sector, he announced the following objectives:
• optimizing
the functioning of public administration and its effectiveness;
•
improving productivity and performance of public officials;
•
achieving budget savings and efficiency of public administration.
Three
years later, you always wonder where are the results of the census of public
officials presented by its promoters as new idea and has been completed many,
many months ago? Where are the results of audits of payroll and jobs completed
since the end of March 2010?
In
fact, instead of "finding pockets of economy" and make public
administration more efficient, there has been, during the year 2010:
• An
increase in the wage bill of 55.2 billion CFA francs, from 370 billion CFA francs
in 2009 to more than 425 billion CFA francs in the draft supplementary budget of
2010. Or a 15% increase in one year!
• A
total demobilization of the public administration because of amateurism, change
in daily work schedule, witch hunt tactics, intimidation and a reckoning by the
ruling power.
About
the public debt, we realize that in June 2009, it was 1,320 billions (1.3
trillion) CFA francs, of which 223.7 billions CFA francs of domestic debt and 1,096
billion (1.096 trillion) CFA francs of external debt. In one year, the State of
Gabon increased its debt by more than 1000 billions (1 trillion) CFA francs, an
increase of 75% of the country's debt in one year, through over 100 contracts
and agreements to indebtedness of all kinds.
The
Gabonese government budget is still only to be performed and the various public
administration departments lack the means to fulfill their missions. In the
meantime, the regime in power uses and abuses of extra-budgetary procedures, to
drain public resources that are reduced mainly to finance personal expenses. It is this situation, which accounts for most
of the financial pressure that the government can no longer hide and the
International Monetary Fund has confirmed that in its report of July 2010.
Contrary
to the assertions of the authority, those budget tensions lead the state to
defer payment due to gabonese small and medium businesses (SMEs), which forces
them to make massive lay offs or simply to disappear.
Among
other measures to revive the economy, the government has introduced such
measures as: the abrupt and illegal ban on export of logs; the introduction of
totally improvised daily working days schedule shuffle (so-called “continuing
daily work schedule”); setting up the capital-investment budget at 897 billion
of CFA francs; the remediation of the business environment to increase the
attractiveness of Gabon.

Concerning
logs, at the Council of Ministers of November 05, 2009, the authority announced
"the ban, in 2010, of logs exports for the benefit of the local processing
of our forest tree species to create more wealth necessary to curb unemployment
and especially for young people and women, and to export finished and
semi-finished high value-added logging products. "
One
year after the country's timber production was strongly reduced and local
processing has not increased. In the
meantime, thousands of jobs were destroyed. Many forestry companies have
already experienced bankruptcy and others are preparing to do so. As we said
from the outset, this has precipitated an economic and social cost very heavy
for Gabon.
The
untimely introduction of the so-called continuing daily work schedule (journée
continue) is also a real disaster. In the public service sector, the continuing
daily work schedule (from 7 am to 2 pm, with no midday lunch pause as before) was
simply transformed into half-day work, with consequences that we know in terms
of productivity, quality of service, public health, and family cohesion.
The
last three years as been years of creation of public institutions, agencies
attached to the Presidency and whose management are associated with or
implicated foreigners. This is the case of the National Agency of National
Parks, the Agency for Information Technology, Gabonese Agency for studies and
observation of space and the National Agency of Great work. These agencies are,
in reality, a parallel government established by the Office of the President who
completely is beyond the control of the Parliament and which in practice leads
to conflicts of attribution.
In
addition, the proposed special economic zone (SEZ) of Nkok is the property of
Olam Group. The partnership agreement signed with the multinational Olam,
property of an investment fund based in Singapore, for the development of this
project, is now a state secret. This special economic zone appears increasingly
as a zone of lawlessness in the economy, taxation and workers.
In
this environment, many investors wonder every day a little more about the real
risk now imposed on their investments in Gabon.
As
for the housing sector, the government had pompously announced the construction
of 5,000 homes per year, three years later the Gabonese are still waiting. In
the meantime, extensive destruction of homes has been made without any policy
for restitution that is set up to help families affected.
A radical
break is needed. It is appropriate to base the civil activity, especially in
public life, even on values that can guarantee the establishment of a better
governance system in Gabon.
The
rehabilitation of civic morality base on core values of Integrity, Liberty,
Justice, Security and Employment is an imperative need to restore the rule of
general interest over special interests, and to create an enabling environment
for investors. Law and Justice must prevail for all, without exception, always
to protect the weak and to secure businesses. They should compel those who
break the rules and promote those who respect them. These basic principles that
underlie behavior and economic growth of winning Nations must be restored in
Gabon.
II. WE MUST
GET OUT OF THE CRISIS
The
Gabonese Constitution states:
Article 117: The republican form of
government, and the pluralistic nature of democracy are intangible and cannot
be subject to any revision.
The
electoral coup that is the basis of the ongoing political crisis in Gabon is a
flagrant violation of the principles defined here. The person who, as of to date,
is exercising the function of the President of the Gabonese Republic, without
having received the majority vote of the Gabonese people, cannot therefore
enjoy any legitimacy.
Also,
the last constitutional revision of January 12, 2011, which was intended only
to strengthen the powers of Ali Bongo is unconstitutional because it violates very
clearly both the spirit and letter of Article 117 above quoted.
The
republican form of government has been weathered and democracy is strongly in
regression. From then on, it is the
responsibility of every citizen of Gabon to engage in struggle for the
restoration of republican and democratic values in a nationalist or patriotic
way. Gabon is not and will not be a monarchy.
The
Constitution specifies, in particular in its Article 3, that "no section
of the people, no group, no individual may usurp the exercise of national
sovereignty." In seeking to consolidate power acquired unlawfully, Ali
Bongo violates the Constitution every day.
Accordingly,
without delay and by any means necessary, to process of “monarchy-sation”
underway in Gabon should be terminated. To this end and following the peaceful
character of the Gabonese people, priority must be given to an initiative
involving all Gabonese through a Sovereign National Conference.
Chronogram
(road map)
July-August 2012:
Preparations of the Sovereign National Conference
Dissolution of National Assembly
Rehabilitation of the National Union (Union Nationale), opposition party
Rehabilitation of all staff and students victims of arbitrary suspension of
wage and scholarships for political issues
Abandonment of all harassment and legal actions politically motivated in Gabon
Restoration of national coverage television station TV + and restitution of its
equipment still confiscated to date by the presidential army guard.
September 2012:
Organization of the Sovereign National Conference in Libreville with a
facilitation by a high-level international organization.
October 2012-December 2013: Period of
Transition
Establishment of transitional institutions from the Sovereign National
Conference
Adoption of a new electoral code
Introduction of biometrics with the participation of all political and civil
society stakeholders
Adoption by referendum of the new Constitution
Organization of General elections (Presidential, Legislative, Local and Senate)
December 31, 2013
End of Transition Period
January 1st, 2014
All
new Institutions of the Republic will have a fresh start.
This
is our exit paperwork for Gabon to get out of the deep crisis that has been
going on since the early presidential election that took place on August 30,
2009.
For a
successful conclusion of this roadmap, we would ask for France, a country that
is very familiar with this situation, to help, along with the United Nations, for
the implementation of this gait pledge of peace and stability, as well as of an
harmonious, balanced and fair development process in our country.
(Translate from French by Citoyen Libre
Gabon, as of July 26, 2012)
