Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba

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Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba

Ali Bongo Ondimba (* 9. February 1959 in Brazzaville ( Republic of Congo ) and Alain Bernard Bongo ) is a Gabonese politician. In 2009 he was elected president to succeed his father Omar Bongo and was sworn in on October 16, 2009. In 2016 he was re-elected under controversial circumstances. He comes from the Bateke minority .

Live and act

In 1973, Bongo converted to Islam and took the first name Ali-Ben. He studied law at the Sorbonne in Paris before turning to politics in the 1980s and working in the office of his father's president. From 1989 to 1991 he was the country's foreign minister . He was assigned to the reformist wing within the Gabonese Democratic Party . An amendment to the constitution passed in 1991, which set the minimum age for ministers at 35, forced him to leave the government.

Bongo canvassing for the 2009 election in Libreville

In the parliamentary elections in 1990 and 1996 he was elected to the National Assembly of Gabon. In 1999 he became Minister of Defense. He held this office until September 2009, when he was elected President of Gabon with 41.7% of the vote. His election sparked protests from opposition supporters.

He is married to Sylvia Valentin. They have a daughter and two sons together. Bongo is also a musician who wrote a number of songs for his mother, the singer and drummer Patience Dabany.

In 2009 he was elected Grand Master of the regular Masonic Grand Lodge of Gabon, an office that his father also held.

Bongo has not been seen in public since October 24, 2018. He is treated as an inpatient following a faint attack or stroke during a visit to Saudi Arabia. Marie-Madeleine Mborantsuo , President of the Constitutional Court and confidante of the Bongo family, inserted a controversial paragraph in the constitution that designated Vice-President Pierre Claver Maganga Moussavou as Ali Bongo's representative instead of President of the Senate until his return.

On January 7, 2019, officers in Libreville tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Bongo .

International reception (legitimation and corruption)

Although elected democratically, Bongo, like his father before him, is often viewed as a dictator in Western democracies . Because Ali-Ben Bongo succeeded his father directly to the presidency after his 41-year term in office, the Bongo family has ruled Gabon for almost half a century and, according to Western media, has always been sucking the country out in the manner of absolutist monarchs . Among other things, because the Bongo family, unlike other African despots, has always been able to keep the country out of wars and uprisings, they are able to hold onto power to this day.

While around 80% of the Gabonese population still lives in poverty, Bongo bought a city ​​palace in Paris in 2010 for around 100 million euros . Although Gabon is a very resource-rich country with a comparatively low population, almost nothing of the natural wealth of the country reaches the population to this day, while Ali-Ben Bongo is currently one of the richest people in the world. The country's infrastructure as well as the health and education system are still ailing. With regard to its “democratic legitimacy”, Bongo is also continuously said to have been involved in massive electoral fraud .

In 2008, Bongo was sued by Transparency International after numerous private accounts with French banks had emerged, through which Bongo allowed income from trading in Gabonese raw materials to flow into his own wallet. However, the investigation fizzled out.

In 2009, Bongo to two for a total of about 500,000 euros Ferraris bought for his daughter and a Mercedes - Limousine purchased what was paid about half from the treasury of Gabon. Bongo's presidential budget alone consumes 8.5% of the entire national budget (as of 2009), for which, according to US investigators, Bongo has been using a secret account with the German Citibank since at least 2000 .

In 2013, French police raided a villa in Nice owned by Bongo in connection with allegations of corruption and embezzlement . In this regard, it was announced again that Bongo may continue to misappropriate funds from the Gabonese state on a large scale for private purposes. Bongo has always been using around 25% of the country's oil revenues for private purposes. According to the Cameroonian media, the Bongo family owns at least 39 properties in France alone. As early as 1999, an investigation by the United States Senate had shown that Bongo had deposited a total of around 130 million US dollars in private assets in various banks in the United States alone, most of which were said to come from government revenues. French investigators also uncovered that Ali-Ben Bongo receives around 50 million euros a year from Elf Aquitaine .

Shortly after the Gabonese Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang was voted Africa's Footballer of the Year in January 2015, various media accused Bongo of bribing jurors from the Continental Association.

2016 presidential election

In the presidential election at the end of August 2016, Bongo defeated Jean Ping, who is considered a serious challenger internationally, by a wafer-thin lead of around 5000 votes, according to official government information. After Ping received more votes than Bongo in almost all other provinces in the country, the counting of votes in the province of Haut-Ogooué , Bongo's home region , was delayed for a noticeably long time. Ultimately, according to official figures, 95.46% of voters in this province voted for Bongo, so that Bongo could still pass Ping. The official turnout in Haut-Ogooué was 99.9%, while the other provinces of the country had an average turnout of only around 48%.

After the official results were announced, riots against Bongo broke out across the country, particularly in the capital Libreville, with numerous dead and injured. Over 1000 people were arrested by those in power. Thereupon the EU, the former colonial power France, the USA and many other international bodies and organizations demanded a detailed publication of the election results for each polling station and, especially for the province of Haut-Ogooué, a complete recount of the votes.

With regard to the official turnout in Haut-Ogooué, the EU emphasized that, if this were actually the case, only 47 eligible voters in the entire province would not have exercised their right to vote - this is hardly conceivable given the largely inadequate or ailing infrastructure of Gabon . Therefore it was generally assumed that there was massive election fraud by Bongo. All demands for the publication of detailed election results or even a recounting of the votes were rejected by Bongo. At the end of September, the Constitutional Court finally confirmed the re-election.

Illness and attempted coup in January 2019

Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba probably suffered a stroke during a stay in Saudi Arabia in October 2018 . After months without public appearances, Bongo was under medical treatment in Morocco in January 2019 when, on January 7, 2019, a group of young army officers led by the Deputy Commander of the Republican Guard, Ondo Obiang Kelly, occupied the building of the state broadcaster and in the state Television read a message that the group wanted to end Bongo's rule and restore democracy in Gabon. The military and civilians were asked to support the movement. The coup attempt failed after just a few hours because hardly any supporters could be mobilized.

In the months that followed he was rarely in Gabon and did not appear in public.

Descent controversy

For many years , the rumor has been circulating not only in Gabon, and not only in the political opposition , that Ali-Ben Bongo Ondimba is not the biological son of his father and predecessor Omar Bongo. Instead, it is rumored that Bongo actually came from Biafra , Nigeria , and was then adopted by Omar Bongo as a toddler in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the early 1960s . The fact that, according to the Gabonese constitution, the descendants of people who have acquired Gabonese citizenship through adoption are only allowed to hold the office of head of state in the fourth generation, fueled this discussion, especially since the legitimacy of Bongo as head of state is thus directly questioned can. To date, Bongo has not decided to use a DNA test to refute what his family has described as a lie - a fact that keeps the discussion going.

literature

  • Janis Otsiemi Otsiemi: Guerre de succession au Gabon: les prétendants. EdilivreAParis, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-35607-063-0 .

Web links

Commons : Ali Bongo Ondimba  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Article at heise.de , accessed on September 3, 2016
  2. ↑ Bongo son declared election winner. rundschau-online.de of September 3, 2009, accessed on September 6, 2016
  3. ↑ Gabon is ruled by Bongo again. dw.com.de from September 3, 2009, accessed on March 29, 2018
  4. ↑ Article at afrik.com
  5. ^ Crises: Attempted coup in Gabon, West Africa. welt.de from January 7, 2019, accessed on January 7, 2019
  6. ↑ Government spokesman in Gabon reports arrest of putschists. Spiegel Online from January 7, 2017, accessed on January 7, 2019
  7. ^ WAZ (June 1, 2010): Dictator Bongo buys villa for 100 million euros
  8. ^ TAZ (2009): The black money comes to light
  9. ↑ Gabon's Bongo Family: Living In Luxury, Paid For By Corruption And Embezzlement . ibtimes.com. From February 15, 2013 (English)
  10. ↑ Révélations sur le Ballon d'or africain 2015: La CAF a barré le vote de 11 pays. Et si Yaya avait raison? . imatin.net. From January 16, 2016 (French)
  11. ↑ EU questions Gabon presidential election vote count . DW.Com (Deutsche Welle) of September 6, 2016 (English)
  12. ↑ Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com): Court in Gabon declares controversial presidential election valid | Currently Africa | DW | 09/25/2016. Retrieved June 28, 2017 .
  13. ^ Süddeutsche Zeitung (January 7, 2019): Gabon: Uprising against the Bongo family
  14. ^ The mystery around Gabon president's health. africanews.com, August 17, 2019, accessed August 17, 2019
  15. ↑ Africa-Live.de (November 5, 2014): Gabon: new book discredits President Bongo and the Bongo family
personal data
SURNAME Bongo Ondimba, Ali-Ben
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bongo, Alain Bernard (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Gabonese politician
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Brazzaville , French Congo