Turnout low as Gabon votes amid opposition boycott

Voters trickled to the polls in Gabon Saturday in legislative elections expected to hand a thumping victory to President Ali Bongo's party in the face of a boycott by some opposition groups.

Bongo's Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) and its allies hold 98 of the 120 seats in parliament in the west African oil state and are not expected to lose much ground given the splintered opposition.

Polling stations closed at 1700 GMT, although some shut earlier because of the low turnout and a lack of electricity as darkness fell.
At two polling stations in the capital Liberville, for instance, only 61 people cast ballots out of 704 registered voters, according to Germaine Mianga of the election commission.

Results are expected Thursday.

In the first legislative poll since his father Omar died in 2009 after 41 years in power, Bongo, 52, has campaigned on his economic achievements and the co-hosting of the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations with Equatorial Guinea, an event that has spurred major investment.

"It's a citizen's duty to go and vote, but it's true it's not very crowded," said voter Antoinette Ntsame-Sima at a polling station in northern Medouneu, the stronghold of leading opposition figure Andre Mba Obame.

Many eyes were on Medouneu, where Mba Obame won 96 percent of the vote in the 2009 presidential election which brought Bongo to power, to see whether voters would observe the boycott.

PDG candidate Maxime Ondimba is facing off against Claude-Guy Assey of the Rally for Gabon -- part of the presidential majority supporting Bongo -- for the seat vacated by Mba Obame, who is ill and undergoing medical treatment in France.

Mba Obame's supporters went out in small groups in Medouneu to urge people not to vote, prompting an outburst from the town's mayor Pauline Ossone of the PDG.

"They are trying to scare people so that they won't vote. Even little old ladies! It's unacceptable," Ossone charged.
But Delphine Alene-Ondo, a retired secretary, was defiant: "I'm not afraid. I am at home, I'm Gabonese, I'm voting for Ondimba... (Mba Obame's supporters) are rubbish."
Lucien-Patrick Landoube, a teacher, acknowledged that there had been calls to boycott the election, "but voting is a civic duty," he said as he cast his ballot at an uncrowded Medouneu polling station.
Reached by telephone in Paris, Mba Obame said: "Today they will say that they took Andre Mba Obame's seat. It's true they will have a deputy, but they haven't taken my seat. They don't represent anyone."
Assey said he hoped to benefit from the boycott. "Not all of Mba Obame's supporters will observe the boycott. They know that the one who is best placed to defend their intrests is Claude-Guy Assey. I will be elected."

A total of 746,000 people are registered to vote in the country of 1.5 million inhabitants, sub-Saharan Africa's fourth largest oil producer.

Despite the recent emergence of a middle class, disparities are huge, with more than half of the population living on less than two dollars a day.

Inspired by the Arab Spring and a string of protest movements against long-standing rulers in sub-Saharan Africa, Gabon's opposition initially looked to be mounting a serious challenge, but it was split over the boycott issue.

Mba Obame's supporters joined forces with 12 other opposition parties in November to reject the elections over the absence of biometric polling materials.

A number of ruling party dissidents joined opposition ranks in recent years in a bid to push for more democracy, but the PDG old guard that once protected Omar Bongo's status as Africa's longest-serving leader appears to have won the day.

"The PDG runs Gabon. We have to vote for Ondimba because if you vote for him, the president (Bongo) will trust us and we'll have schools, roads and everything," said Nestor Aboghe, a PDG supporter.

sorce: news.yahoo.com