Africa Coup Déjà Vu Hits Gabon

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the coup in Gabon, new real estate incentives across China, and Ukraine’s most extensive drone strike yet on Russia.

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the coup in Gabon, new real estate incentives across China, and Ukraine’s most extensive drone strike yet on Russia.

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Africa experienced another round of coup déjà vu on Wednesday when military officers in Gabon seized power moments after the announcement of incumbent President Ali Bongo Ondimba’s reelection win. The officers, led by Gen. Brice Oligui Nguema, the head of Gabon’s presidential guard, went on state-run television to announce that they were voiding the Aug. 26 election results, closing the Central African country’s borders, and dissolving all state institutions.

The new transitional government, called the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions, denounced Bongo’s rule as propagating “irresponsible and unpredictable governance.” Under Bongo’s leadership, 30 percent of Gabon’s population lives in poverty and nearly 40 percent of young people are unemployed, despite the state generating around $6 billion in 2022 from its vast oil production wealth.

Bongo and members of his family are under house arrest at the presidential palace in Libreville, the capital. The Bongo family’s reign has been one of Africa’s longest-serving dynasties. Prior to Bongo, who has served as head of state since 2009, his father ruled the country for almost 42 years. In a video shared online by a Gabonese journalist on Wednesday, the deposed leader pleaded for international support to help restore him to power.

Controversy marred Bongo’s most recent electoral win even before the results were announced on Wednesday. Opposition leader Albert Ondo Ossa, who secured 31 percent of the vote versus Bongo’s 65 percent, accused the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party of rigging ballots and harassing voters. Prior to election day, Bongo imposed a nightly curfew, and Gabon’s government cut internet access, allegedly to combat disinformation. Many residents fled the capital over the weekend in anticipation of violence. No international election observers were invited to oversee Gabon’s vote.

If Gabon’s junta succeeds, then it will be the eighth coup in West and Central Africa (and the sixth former French colony) to overthrow its government since 2020. Prior to Gabon, the most recent African coup occurred in Niger in July—and was also carried out by the head of the nation’s presidential guard. Gabon last battled a coup attempt in 2019, when soldiers briefly took control of a state broadcaster.

Hundreds of people have gathered in Libreville’s streets to celebrate the junta’s takeover. However, not everyone has been quick to cheer on Africa’s latest coup. Officials in France, which has troops in Gabon, condemned the takeover and ordered French citizens in the country to remain indoors. White House National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said the events in Gabon were “deeply concerning” and that the United States is watching the situation “very, very closely.” He also said all U.S. Embassy personnel, as well as what he called a small number of U.S. troops in the country, have been accounted for. Russia and China expressed concern regarding the potential spread of violence in the region.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, the chair of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), warned that a “contagion of autocracy” is spreading across the continent and said he was working closely with other African leaders on how to respond in Gabon, though Gabon is not a member of ECOWAS.

China spotlight. Beijing is taking additional serious measures to shore up its wobbly economy. Facing threats of deflation, Guangzhou, China’s fifth-largest city, and tech hub Shenzhen announced on Wednesday that they would ease mortgage rates to allow first-time homeowners to receive preferential loans regardless of their credit scores. The decision comes after Beijing called on Chinese cities to revive the country’s real estate sector, which accounts for a quarter of the nation’s GDP. State-owned banks are also expected to lower interest rates on existing mortgages.

Economic stimulus is not the only field that China is struggling to control. On Tuesday, Meta announced that it had removed thousands of accounts linked to Beijing in what the company called its “biggest single takedown” of a Chinese influence campaign. The covert operation began in 2019 and resulted in the removal of 7,704 Facebook accounts, 954 Facebook pages, 15 Facebook groups, and 15 Instagram accounts. This was the seventh Chinese influence operation that Meta removed over the past six years and the fourth of its kind that it removed this year alone.

Drone strikes. At least two people were killed in Kyiv during an overnight Russian airstrike on the Ukrainian capital. Numerous buildings, a public park, and a school were hit. Ukrainian air defenses successfully shot down all 28 missiles as well as 15 out of 16 drones, making it the Kremlin’s largest airstrike on Kyiv since the spring. Russian forces also targeted key infrastructure and railway tracks in Zhytomyr, located in central Ukraine.

Following the strikes, Ukraine launched an onslaught of drone attacks on six Russian regions, targeting Kremlin military assets. An airport near Russia’s border with Estonia and Latvia was among key targets hit, damaging four military transport planes there. The barrage was Kyiv’s most extensive drone attack on Moscow since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

LGBTQ crackdown in Africa. Prosecutors in Uganda charged two men with “aggravated homosexuality” in what could result in the East African country’s first execution in decades. Under the nation’s new Anti-Homosexuality Act, it is illegal to perform same-sex sexual acts (consensual or not) with the elderly or someone who has a disability, with punishment as severe as the death penalty. LGBTQ rights activists have denounced the Ugandan government’s actions.

More than 2,000 miles away, in Nigeria, police on Monday arrested more than 200 people attending a same-sex wedding. Nigeria’s penal code criminalizes same-sex civil unions, with punishment up to 14 years in prison. Amnesty International Nigeria condemned the mass arrest as a “witch-hunt.”

Spain is taking food fights to the next level. Around 15,000 festivalgoers took to the streets of Buñol on Wednesday for an epic tomato-throwing street battle. The annual “Tomatina” celebration involves 120 tons of overripe tomatoes and clothes you don’t mind getting stained. Goggles are recommended for the most avid participants.