With a slim 42 per cent win, hardly a ringing endorsement for a ruling party candidate with by far the best financed campaign, Ali Ben Bongo, former minister of defence and foreign affairs and son of the former Gabonese strongman, late Omar Bongo, was proclaimed by the constitutional court as winner of the country’s controversial presidential poll.
Opposition politicians have rejected the outcome of the polls, accusing the ruling party of massive rigging and other electoral malpractices. Andre Mba Obame, former Interior Minister and Pierre Mamboundou are rejecting the election results. Obame says some ballot boxes were stuffed for the ruling party and that opposition supporters were excluded from the vote counting process. Mamboundou also accused the ruling party of fraud, saying the Gabonese people do not want power passed dynastically from father to son.
Violence had broken out following days of delays in announcing final results of the election as a result of the split by the electoral commission over its authority to investigate returns from nearly 3,000 polling stations. During that delay, all of the three leading candidates had declared themselves the winner. But when the final result was announced, Bongo was credited with 42 per cent of the vote while Mamboundou and Obame each won more than 25 per cent. That makes the ruling party candidate the winner because Gabon does not hold a run-off election if no candidate wins more than half of the ballots cast.
However, observers believe there may not be respite yet for the junior Bongo especially if Mamboundou and Obame head to court, in which case, his election might not be official until the court validates his win. Curiously, France which is being criticised for her undue interference in the Gabonese affairs was the first to acknowledge the outcome of the polls as reflecting the true wish of the people. , France , says the vote took place under "acceptable conditions" and that losing candidates who want to contest the result should do so in Gabon 's constitutional court.
Nicholas Sarkozy, the French President, had written to Bongo shortly after the result was announced assuring him of France's wish for good relations between the two countries. "Following the announcement by the constitutional court of the presidential election results, I am happy to address to you my congratulations and wishes of success in fulfilling the responsibilities that await you," Sarkozy had stated in the letter.
Already, there have been backlashes to what many Gabonese considered to be France 's interference in their internal affairs. Shortly after Bongo was declared winner, protesters attacked the French embassy in what looked like a premeditated action meant to send strong signal to the French government.
For more than 40 years, France has being deeply embroiled in the murky politics of its oil-rich former colony, Gabon , under the late president Omar Bongo. Gabon too played a key role in the complex web of relationships in France 's former African empires as a source of oil, cash and scandal for successive Paris governments. Although it is generally believed that France took a neutral position in the presidential election, some activists say the former colonial power helped rig the vote. Many still believes that France is still pulling the strings in Gabon and Sarkozy letter confirms as much. The impression, false or otherwise, is that France is keen to transfer its affections directly from father to son.
And that is understandable, the small Central African Republic still hosts a major French military base, 120 French firms including the oil giant Total and a 10,000-strong French community. For Bongo, like his late father, a connection with France looks inevitable. He was born in neighbouring Republic of Congo and since the age of nine was educated in France - going to a private Christian secondary school in the upmarket town of Neuilly, west of Paris, and to the Sorbonne where he graduated with a PhD in Law. Although, analysts say that Bongo feels less loyalty to France than his father, his second wife Sylvia is French and he reads and speaks English fluently, but struggles to speak local languages - further alienating him from the populace.
Yet strong anti-French forces stand against his administration. Stephen Smith, a professor of African studies at Duke University in the United States even admitted this much. "I was really amazed by the level of anti-French resentment when I was in Gabon in August," he was quoted as saying.
Despite the growing anti-France sentiment, and Ali Ben Bongo's perceived independent mindedness, observers say France would still play pivotal role in his government. The first major step to achieving peaceful reign which he has promised would not last 40 years like his father's is to mend fences with the opposition.

By Yemi Bamidele, with agency report