Gabon: Ali Bongo officially announces his candidacy for the August 2023 presidential election

The Gabonese Head of State will be in the race for the next presidential election. This is what the president announced on Sunday, July 9 in a publication on his Twitter account, where he will indeed run for a third term in the presidential election on August 26.

"I officially announce today that I am a candidate" in the presidential election, he launched in front of a few hundred supporters who chanted "Ali President!", in a speech broadcast live on Twitter, in the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) of Nkok, near the capital Libreville.

"I know that together, all together, united, by the will of God, we will win," continued the Gabonese Head of State under the acclamation of his supporters.

The official election campaign will take place from August 11 to 25 at midnight but most candidates have been conducting it for a year throughout the country, Mr. Bongo having multiplied in recent months an intense "republican tour" by distributing the promises. A "pre-campaign" conducted with the means of the State, denounces the opposition.

His candidacy will have to be ratified by an inauguration Congress scheduled for Monday of his all-powerful Gabonese Democratic Party (CEO), which largely dominates Parliament and is also a major favourite in the legislative and municipal elections that will take place on the same day as the presidential election on August 26.

Ali Bongo is leaving, for the time being, a great favourite of the presidential election, because the opposition is advancing in very dispersed order, with about twenty personalities who have already announced their intention to run against the outgoing Head of State.

As a reminder, Ali Bongo was elected for the first time in 2009 on the death of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba, who had ruled the country for more than 41 years, before being re-elected in 2016.