Gabon's junta chief Brice Oligui Nguema has romped his way to victory in the first presidential election since he took power in a 2023 coup, with provisional results giving him more than 90 percent of the vote.
Nguema, who ended more than five decades of corruption-plagued rule by the Bongo family in August 2023, won 90.35 percent of the vote, Gabon's Interior Minister Hermann Immongault announced Sunday, with 90 percent of votes counted.
Nguema's main rival, Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze, obtained 3.02 percent and the six other candidates no more than 1 percent each.
Turnout in Saturday's poll was 70.4 percent, lower than the 87 percent announced shortly after polls closed.
Immongault said the lower figure was due to difficulties some Gabonese citizens encountered in voting abroad.
The 50-year-old general seized power in the oil-producing Central African country in an August 2023 coup against his distant cousin and then-president Ali Bongo, one of eight successful putsches in West and Central African countries since 2020.
In the days after the coup, he promised to hand over power to civilians in a transition back to constitutional rule, but declared his candidacy for president last month.
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No major incidents
Contrary to previous elections in 2016 and 2023, which were marked by tensions and unrest, Saturday's voting went off smoothly and calm reigned on the streets of the capital Libreville.
For the first time, foreign and independent media were allowed to film the ballot count.
International observers at polling stations across the country did not notice any major incidents, according to reports.
In total, some 920,000 voters were called to cast their ballots at 3,037 polling stations, of which 96 were abroad.
The small central African nation has big oil and timber reserves and is home to just 2.5 million people.
Despite its resources, more than a third of the population still live below the poverty line of $2 a day.
Ties to former regime
The junta leader overwhelmingly dominated the campaign, with his seven challengers, led by ousted leader Ali Bongo's last prime minister, Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze, largely invisible by comparison.
Who are the candidates in Gabon's post-coup presidential election?
A new constitution championed by Nguema was approved with 92 percent of the vote last November and his very public crackdown on corruption is widely viewed as popular.
But critics have accused Nguema of failing to move on from the years of plunder of the country's vast mineral wealth under the Bongos, whom he served for years.
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He has also faced questions about his own finances. A 2020 investigation by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a global network of investigative journalists, found he had bought three properties in the US state of Maryland for a total of over $1 million in cash.
He declined to respond to questions from OCCRP, saying his private life should be respected, and has not commented further on the matter.
On another key issue - Gabon's historically close ties to former colonial master France - he has signalled continuity with the Bongo era, talking up his close relationship with President Emmanuel Macron and visiting France several times.
"We have very good relations and France is our historic partner," he told RFI last month.
(with newswires)
