CIVICUS speaks with Sentiment Ondo, Deputy Secretary of Tournons la Page International, about Gabon’s recent legislative, local and presidential elections and what they reveal about the country’s democratic trajectory. Tournons la Page is a pan-African citizen movement that campaigns for democratic change and term limits for presidents in Africa.

General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema came to power in Gabon in an August 2023 coup and consolidated his power in elections in 2025. After winning the April presidential election with over 90 per cent of the vote, his party, the Union Démocratique des Bâtisseurs (UDB), won 103 of 145 parliamentary seats in the September-October legislative elections. Despite the end of the former ruling Bongo family’s 56-year reign, Gabon’s civic space remains restricted and its democratic future uncertain.

What’s your assessment of the September-October elections?

The September-October elections, which included legislative and local elections, were eagerly awaited, as they marked the end of the political transition process that began when Nguema was sworn in on 4 September 2023. Over 18,000 candidates registered, a record number in Gabon’s political history, raising hopes for an open and competitive election. Around 954,000 voters were eligible to vote in over 3,100 polling stations, including around 100 abroad for the diaspora.

However, this enthusiasm was quickly dampened by a relatively low turnout of just over 50 per cent, compared to more than 70 per cent in the April presidential election. The organisation of the election proved to be less rigorous than that of the presidential election and the constitutional referendum of November 2024, which validated a new draft constitution, one of the main points of which was the adoption of a strong presidential system concentrating power in the hands of the president.

During the September-October elections, numerous appeals, irregularities and vote cancellations were recorded in several constituencies, fuelling a sense of confusion and frustration among observers. The results, which gave victory to Nguema’s party, the UDB, and the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), the former ruling party, showed a loss of ground for parties that opposed the former Bongo regime.

The decline of opposition parties – the Democrats, the National Union and the Rally for the Fatherland and Modernity – which won only three parliamentary seats in total, raised questions about the political trajectory of Gabon’s transition, which seems to have allowed the PDG to survive despite its 56 years of unchallenged rule being widely criticised.

The political alignment resulting from this election seems to reflect continuity rather than renewal. With an estimated abstention rate of over 45 per cent, it’s impossible to say the results fully reflect the popular will. Gabon remains at a crossroads between democratic change and the continuation of the Bongo-PDG system.

What role did civil society play in the election?

As in previous elections, civil society played a key role. It set up three citizen observation missions, in accordance with article 24 of the new Electoral Code promulgated in January. The Citizen Observer Network deployed 500 observers across Gabon, Tournons la Page mobilised 214 and other organisations also participated. These initiatives aimed to strengthen transparency and encourage participation in the democratic process after three decades of election rigging and suppression since the return of multiparty politics in 1990. Missions were deployed in accordance with international and sub-regional standards for election observation, with the support of the Gabon Civil Society and Media Support Project.

However, observers highlighted the limitations of their scope of action in a context where the culture of open elections accessible to domestic observation has not yet been fully established. While their presence helped to document irregularities and raise public awareness, their impact was unfortunately not enough to prevent these problems, most of which were inherited from the former regime.

What conditions could ensure Gabon doesn’t replace one form of authoritarianism with another?

Given the current configuration of the political landscape resulting from the transitional electoral cycle, the potential bulwark against authoritarianism lies in Nguema’s ability to promote freedom of expression and debate within his party, which has a large majority in parliament and other institutions.

However, the fact remains that the concentration of executive power without any real institutional checks and balances represents a high risk of authoritarian drift, likely compromising the promise of genuine democratic renewal that is eagerly awaited by a large part of the population.

By way of illustration, the new constitution, adopted by 91 per cent of the vote in the November 2024 referendum, established a seven-year presidential term, renewable once, and abolished the post of prime minister, giving the president extensive powers to appoint members of the judiciary and dissolve parliament, without parliament being able to easily table a motion of no confidence against the executive. This new situation creates a significant power imbalance, because without effective checks and balances and a strong opposition capable of challenging the ruling power, the risk of a slide towards a new authoritarian system remains real.