Presidential election in Gabon

In Gabon, interim president Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema won Saturday’s presidential election with 90.35 per cent of the vote. This was announced on Sunday in the capital Libreville by Interior Minister Hermann Immongault, who is also President of the National Commission for the Organisation and Coordination of Elections and the Referendum. The results are still preliminary and must now be confirmed by the Constitutional Council. Of the approximately 909,000 registered voters, more than 70 per cent cast their votes, including over 28,000 from abroad. The 50-year-old Oligui Nguema, who came to power in a coup in 2023, prevailed against seven other candidates. His strongest challenger, former Prime Minister Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, received around three per cent of the vote, while the other candidates each received less than one per cent.

While challenger Bilie-By-Nze expressed concern about the transparency of the elections after casting his vote on Saturday, local election observation missions reported good and transparent conditions in around 98% of the polling stations observed. However, there were also reports – including from the Réseau des Observateurs Citoyens (ROC) – that election observers were denied access to various polling stations.

The first international reactions followed immediately after the election results were announced. French President Emmanuel Macron congratulated Oligui Nguema by telephone on the evening of 13 April. Gabon is one of the few African countries that continues to maintain good relations with the former colonial power France. There are currently over 300 French troops stationed in Gabon. The African Union (AU), which had suspended Gabon’s membership after the coup, also spoke out after the election. The head of the AU Commission, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, welcomed the smooth running of the elections and congratulated the Gabonese authorities on the good organisation of the presidential election. He also took note of the preliminary results and the election victory of Oligui Nguema, as stated in a statement published on the social media Platform X.

The election is seen as a formal transition from a military transitional government to a civilian-legitimised presidency. In August 2023, the military overthrew then President Ali Bongo Ondimba shortly after a controversial election, ending more than five decades of political rule by the Bongo family (press review CW 35/2023). Since then, Oligui Nguema has been leading the government as interim president. When he took power, he promised a quick transition to a civilian government through elections. In November last year, Oligui Nguema held a referendum on a new constitution (press review CW 47/2024), which critics say served his presidential candidacy and the expansion of his power. At the beginning of March 2025, he took a leave of absence from military service in accordance with the electoral law passed in January this year and announced his candidacy. This law also allows members of the military and judges to run for political office, provided they take a leave of absence beforehand. During the election campaign, Oligui Nguema relied on large election posters, mass rallies and a targeted social media presence. Under the slogan ‘We Build Together’, he announced the diversification of the economy as well as investments in agriculture, industry and tourism and presented himself as a reformer with the aim of distancing himself from the previous political leadership. However, Oligui Nguema, who is a relative of Ali Bongo and used to be a campaign worker for his father and predecessor Omar Bongo, also has connections to the old ruling elite. The 57-year-old challenger Bilie-By-Nze, who also emphasised a clear break with the previous government despite his affiliation with the Bongo administration, ran a rather inconspicuous election campaign and went from door to door with his election programme.

Major challenges lie ahead for Oligui Nguema. In addition to the complete return to a civilian government and upcoming reforms, Gabon also faces major economic challenges. Despite economic growth of 2.9 per cent in 2024 compared to 2.4 per cent in 2023, the Central African country continues to struggle with a budget deficit, high national debt and pronounced social inequality. International observers see the new term of office as an opportunity for political and economic stabilisation. Oligui Nguema is now starting a seven-year term of office, which can be extended once according to the constitution. The coming months will show whether he succeeds in setting new political priorities.

Sudan conference in London

A one-day Sudan conference was held in London on Tuesday. Co-chaired by the African Union (AU), European Union (EU), Germany, France and the United Kingdom (UK), representatives from a total of 17 countries and various multilateral organisations came together to coordinate humanitarian aid for Sudan and discuss a political solution to the civil war. These included Egypt, Kenya, Chad, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the USA – among others. However, representatives of the two sides in Sudan’s civil war were not invited. At the conference, both the EU and the UK pledged to increase their support for Sudan. While the latter announced an aid package of around 140 million euros for the current year, the EU pledged aid totalling 522 million euros, including 125 million euros from Germany, as Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock announced.

Baerbock also emphasised that no amount of humanitarian aid would be enough as long as this war continued – an assessment shared by the United Nations (UN). According to the UN, 4.2 billion US dollars are needed for humanitarian aid in the country this year alone, of which only 6.3 per cent has been received so far. The reduction in aid from the USA, which in the past provided around half of all humanitarian aid in Sudan, is particularly significant here.

Other key points of the meeting included the call for an immediate and lasting ceasefire and support for a political transition to a civilian-led government. The participants called on all parties to the conflict to fulfil their obligations under international law, to better protect civilians and to allow unhindered access for humanitarian organisations. Attacks on aid workers were strongly condemned. Furthermore, it was agreed that existing diplomatic and humanitarian initiatives should be better coordinated. In this context, regional formats such as the AU Expanded Mechanism on the Sudan Crisis and the Consultative Meetings on Enhancing Coordination of Peace Initiatives and Efforts in Sudan should be utilised and strengthened in a targeted manner. It was also emphasised that the division of Sudan was not a solution and that external military interference must be avoided at all costs. The existing arms embargo against Sudan should continue to be observed. The British proposal to set up a joint contact group to facilitate the ceasefire talks in Sudan, on the other hand, was not agreed upon. The proposal was rejected by Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The meeting in London was sharply criticised from Sudan, particularly by the transitional government under military leader and de facto head of state Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. Among other things, it criticised the absence of representatives of the two parties to the conflict, without whom a peace roadmap would not be possible. The participation of Kenya and the UAE was also criticised. According to various sources, both parties support the paramilitary organisation Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Al-Burhan’s government has since filed a lawsuit against the UAE at the International Court of Justice for allegedly supplying weapons to the RSF and thus aiding and abetting genocide. The UAE, however, reject the accusations. The hosts of the conference defended their decision and emphasised that no sustainable solution to the conflict was possible without the participation of the UAE and Kenya.
Meanwhile, the civil war in Sudan between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), which has now been going on for exactly two years, continues to escalate (press review CW 16/2023). On Tuesday evening, the commander of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, announced the establishment of the parallel government ‘Government of Peace and Unity’, further dampening hopes of an early resolution to the conflict. Although the Sudanese military has recently made significant military progress, including recapturing large parts of the capital Khartoum (press review CW 9/2025), the RSF still controls large parts of the country, particularly in the Darfur region. There, the RSF recently launched an attack on the Zamzam refugee camp, in which hundreds of civilians were killed.

In other news

The documentary Ernest Cole: Lost and Found opens in German cinemas today. The photographer Ernest Cole was considered South Africa’s first freelance black photographer and spent years documenting the apartheid regime in his home country. After his photos were published in 1967 in his book House of Bondage, Cole was forced to emigrate to the USA. There he was initially celebrated for his socially critical photographs, but was never able to build on his initial success. Cole gradually faded from public memory and died in complete poverty in 1990, shortly before the South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela was released from prison and led his old homeland on the path to democracy and reconciliation. In 2017, over 60,000 of the photographer’s negatives turned up in a safe deposit box in Sweden. A surprising find that once again drew attention to Cole. For director Raoul Peck, this was the reason to dedicate an entire film to the life and work of this extraordinary artist. The film premiered almost exactly a year ago at the Cannes Film Festival and won the prize for best documentary film.