Just elected, Brice Oligui Nguema, former president of the transition, wants to engage the country in a profound institutional refoundation. After the creation of a new party, he intends to appoint vice-presidents and carry out electoral reforms.

A victory expected, a transition in motion
Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema came, largely, at the head of the presidential election of April 11, 2025. According to the results announced by the Minister of the Interior, Hermann Immongault, he was elected with 90% of the votes cast. This, it would seem, Soviet score is the measure of popularity gained since the coup d’état of August 30, 2023, by which the head of the Republican Guard had ended the reign of the Bongo family. After less than two years at the head of the Gabonese transition, Brice Oligui Nguema had promised a political break. With the removal of the Prime Minister, executive power is now centralized in the Presidency. He will not want to concentrate all these powers in his hands alone, so he plans to create vice-presidents.

Two Vice-Chairs
With the adoption of more than 1,000 normative texts in the first year, to give effect to the principles of the new Constitution. A reform presented by its supporters as a rationalisation of institutions, in a country where power was already, in fact, very concentrated. The two vice-presidents who will be appointed will soon have to be designated: one, protocol, will be the number two of the state; the other will be in charge of government action. The latter must have a high level of administrative expertise and must be a political force. The names of Joseph Owondault Berre and Raymond Ndong Sima circulate. But, nothing is certain.

A new calendar
The political battle does not end there. A new law on political parties, with stricter criteria and an electoral redistribution that will allow the organization of legislative and local elections from August 2025. Always in the perspective of the gathering. On the presidential majority side, the platform Rassemblement des Bâtisseurs (RdB) will turn into a political party. He intends to gather the President’s support without absorbing the many components of the platform (84 parties, 4,200 associations, 22,000 individual members). Its coordinator, Anges-Kevin Nzigou, presents it as a “political matrix” designed to structure a future majority. This initiative is causing a stir: Justine Lekogo, member of the platform, has publicly expressed her reservations, questioning the legitimacy of this transformation and the silence of the president on the subject.

A new Republic
If the refoundation dynamic seems to be on track, the institutional balance remains to be built. The concentration of power around the president, even validated by the ballot box and referendum, raises questions. The break with the old regime will be measured by actions: political openness, independence of counter-powers, electoral transparency. Brice Oligui Nguema now has free hands. It remains to be seen whether it will make Gabon a renewed democracy, or whether it will perpetuate, in some other form, the legacy of a centralized power.

Nicholas Nguema has slowly established himself as a great advocate of democratic reforms and transparency on the Gabonese political scene. He was very hard on the Bongo regime until its fall in 2023, he is also one of the major supporters of General Brice Oligui Nguema. However, this does not prevent him from calling for a definitive break with the former PDG regime. To what is this repositioning due? Pragmatic evolution or political ambition? With the 2025 presidential election approaching, Nicolas Nguema appears more than ever as a key player in Gabon’s political system.
Nicholas Nguema, between politics and business
Well-known in the Gabonese landscape, Nicolas Nguema is one of the people who animate the political ecosystem of this West African country with less than three million inhabitants. Fervent advocate of democratic reforms and transparency in the country’s governance, this businessman and politician is the co-founder of the Party for Change (PLC), along with lawyer Anges Kevin Nzigou. During the reign of former President Ali Bongo, this party has, through its positions, ended up being a critical voice in advocating, loudly, for a profound transformation of the political landscape of his country, minated by clientelism and other concussions of all kinds. Alongside his political commitment, Nicolas Nguema is a true businessman. Legal agent in Gabon of the Santullo Sericom Group, an Italian company that has had disputes with the Gabonese state in the past, he played a key role. With this double cap of businessman and politician, Nicolas Nguema is sometimes adored, sometimes controversial.

A commitment marked by protest
Since the creation of the PLC (Party for Change), Nicolas Nguema has shown his line of conduct. Standing out from other members of the Gabonese opposition who do not hesitate to fall into the marigot of corruption, he has forged his identity, and especially the image of a man who does not compromise with the truth. Rare in a country plagued by corruption at the highest levels of government. Having been one of the active members of the collective “Call to Action”, which sought recognition of the power vacancy following President Ali Bongo’s health problems, Nicolas Nguema has made many enemies, even within his own political party. Note that this movement marked a turning point in the Gabonese opposition by highlighting the need for political alternation. Of course, this did not come without legal problems. Thus, in December 2020, he was arrested and placed in police custody by the General Directorate of Counter-Interference and Military Security (B2), in an alleged case related to the sale of a barge belonging to the Santullo Sericom Group. With the many supporters of the population and its supporters who denounced an arrest for political reasons. After several weeks of detention, he was released in March 2021 thanks to a decision by the Chamber of Indictment of the Court of Appeal of Libreville.

Brice Oligui Nguema, politics differently
Since the fall of Ali Bongo in August 2023 following a coup
, Nicolas Nguema and his party have adopted a new posture. Now the PLC is no longer hiding its support, openly shown, to General Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the man who leads the political transition after the coup. With the congress scheduled for February 22, 2025, the PLC should, it is hoped, formalize its positioning, which we know, goes in favor of the president of the transition, Brice Oligui Nguema. He was in France at the beginning of February to mobilize the diaspora, Nicolas Nguema says to anyone who wants to hear that General Oligui Nguema has made “concrete progress” in fifteen months of transition, particularly in terms of infrastructure and governance. But issues like education and health are areas where much remains to be done.

Break with the old regime
Despite his support for the leader of the transition, Nicolas Nguema remains very lucid. Indeed, it does not miss an opportunity to insist on the need for a total break with the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), which has dominated the political scene for more than five decades. According to him, the current transition will only be successful if the former barons of the Bongo regime are definitively removed from the administration. “Of course, we blame the fact that there are still too many ‘PDGists’ within the administration, but this will inevitably stop very soon. Inevitably, the CEO must disappear from the political landscape in our country.” For the early presidential election of 12 April 2025, the position of DFC and its Co-Chairman is clear: it believes that Brice Oligui Nguema is best placed to lead this transition, provided he detaches himself completely from the CEO.

Nicolas Nguema, a political strategist?
The DFC has made a 180° turn by providing its unwavering support to the Gabonese transition. Political strategy? The political future of the DFC, which passed in a blink of an eye from a radical opposition party to a fervent supporter of the transition, marks an important development in Nicolas Nguema’s political career. Does he hope that this pragmatic position will allow him to play a key role in the recomposition of the Gabonese political landscape? Beyond all these questions, it is not easy to see the old party, the CEO and the weight of the former cadres of this party disappear so soon. Also, the upcoming presidential election will serve as a test to assess whether the transition will usher in a new era for Gabon. In any case, Nicolas Nguema, as an influential figure of the PLC, will have to make a choice: fly with his own wings or stay in the lap of transition. He has already declared himself a candidate for the next parliamentary elections for the renewal of the Gabonese Parliament.

An official of the party of the opponent Moïse Katumbi was killed and several others wounded Tuesday, November 28, 2023 in Kindu, in eastern DRC, where the opponent arrived as part of his campaign for the presidential election of December 20. This is the first major incident since the beginning of this election campaign, which is taking place in a tense political climate.

The climate was already tense long before the landing of Moïse Katumbi’s plane, the authorities having forbidden the opponent to hold his meeting at the Central Tribune of the main artery of the city of Kindu.

Upon arrival, Moïse Katumbi and his allies, including former Prime Minister Matata Ponyo and Seth Kikuni were cheered and followed by the crowd in the streets before the rally relocated elsewhere. It was at the approach of the governor’s residence that the opponent and his supporters were attacked with stone throws by young supposed to belong to the presidential party.
“Stoned”, according to his party
In the exchanges and the crowd, at the head of the procession, Dido Kakisingi, youth leader of the Ensemble for the Republic party of Moïse Katumbi in Kindu, was hit by a projectile. On the ground, he was beaten violently to the point of dying, according to his party, claiming that he was simply “stoned”.

But for the mayor of Kindu, the latter fell from a vehicle of the procession before being stamped. The police intervened, firing live ammunition. In the process, several others were injured.

These incidents did not stop the campaign procession of Moïse Katumbi who held his rally to ask the people to vote.