"LE GABON ENERVANT" OR "ANNOYING GABON"

AFRICA NEWS ROOM du 30/01/12 - SEYCHELLES -... by AFRICA24 An Excellent analysis of the AU situation on the TV Channel Africa 24 Une excellente analyse de la situation a l'UA sur la chaine Africa 24 English version The African Union leadership vote led to an impasse with neither candidate able to garner the two third of the vote needed to be elected. While this result looks like a no win for either candidate, this blog is of the opinion that Gabon and Francophone Africa are the losers of this contest. Here is why: 1. Jean Ping was the incumbent Jean Ping was standing for reelection. This was clearly a referendum on his leadership. He ran on his record and since he did not receive the needed two third of the vote, it can be concluded that his leadership of the African Union was rejected. Ping failed in his bid to win a second term as AU chair, quite an unusual situation since in most international organization, leaders are almost always reelected. This...

English version The news from Addis-Ababa, Ethiopia, indicates that African leaders failed to elect a new chairman of the African Union Commission. It appears that Gabon's Jean Ping, who was running for a second, failed to secure the required two-third majority to win another term. Ping's main challenger Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, withdrew from the election after three rounds of a stalemate situation. As a result of this stalemate, none of the two candidates emerged as a winner. The AU Commission's deputy chair, Erastus Mwencha who is from Kenya, will take over from Ping until the next AU summit in about six months in Malawi, when a new vote by African leaders will vote again. Therefore, for all intent and purposes, Jean Ping is out as president for the time being. This blog will post a more substantive analysis in the hours to come. Version française Les nouvelles en provenance d'Addis-Abeba, en Ethiopie, indiquent que les dir...

English Version On Monday, 30 January 2012, the chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission will be elected by the AU heads of state. South African Home Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma is challenging the incumbent chairperson, Jean Ping, a former Gabonese foreign minister, who is standing for a second four year term of office. In this post, this blog is proposing the views and opinions of the South African media concerning this election. The audio of these documents is English only, and they allow for a better understanding of the motivations and expectations of the South African political establishment. Version française Le lundi 30 Janvier 2012, le président de la Commission de l'Union africaine (UA) sera élu par les chefs d'état de l'UA. Pour cette élection, le Ministre de l'Intérieur d’Afrique du Sud, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, défie le titulaire du poste, M. Jean Ping, ancien ministre des Affaires étrangères du Gabon, qui voudrait ...

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Jean Ping English Version Thabo Mbeki, the former president of South Africa who remains a very influential political player in his country and beyond, has been recently in writing and in various speeches, expressing his discontent with all international institutions, including NATO and the UN, especially in the way they have dealt with Africa, which in Mr. Mbeki’s opinion, was done in a manner akin to an insidious attempt to re-colonize Africa. According to him, was happened in Abidjan and Tripoli was evidence that the very independence for which Africans have fought so hard and long to achieve, was being undermined. Thabo Mbeki cannot take over NATO or the UN, but his country is the strongest in Africa and he believes that with South Africa at the head of the African Union, things would be different and Africa would have more of a backbone. This is why one of his protégé, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the current Interior Minister of South Africa, i...

English version The North American branch of the party “Union du Peuple Gabonais” (UPG), has issued on Saturday the following statement: Congratulations to our brothers, little brothers, nephews and children playing for the Panthers. The government has not given you the training, or given you the means to be who you are. You are the product of your own efforts. All of Gabon recognizes your success and encourages you. Do not be indebted to Ali Bongo who is using you and the CAN competition to recover polically, after mishandling the preparation of this CAN. To all Gabonese, your participation and passion at the stadium to support the Panthers are instructive. I believe in your ability to mobilize. The day comes when you should use that passion to do battle with Ali Bongo and the PDG and release Gabon from a half century of dictatorship and looting of our country. You must also be aware that CAN2012 will end in a few days, the realities of daily life will ...

English version The Freedom House political observatory is an NGO (non-governmental organization) publishes an annual global survey of political rights and civil liberties. This survey examines the ability of various populations to exercise their political and civil rights in 195 countries and 14 territories around the world. The latest edition of the survey was just published and analyzes the global situation by the end of 2011. This survey assigns each country and territory a status of Free, Partly Free, or Not Free based on a scoring of their performance on key democracy indicators. As you can see on the map above, Freedom House represents the countries that are free by the color green, those that are partly free by the color yellow and the not free by the color purple. Freedom House in their report, provides the following criteria: 1. Free Country: where there is open political competition, a climate of respect for civil liberties, significant independent civic li...

English version One of our readers, surely a friend of this blog, wrote to encourage the work this blog is doing, but he was interested in finding out whether enough people were able to read the content of this blog from Gabon. As a response, this blog wanted to reassure this reader and all others who may have the same question, by sharing with everybody the statistics of this blog. The map above represents a world distribution of this blog audience and is provided to us in real time by our host Google. Countries colored in green are the ones where there are most of the readers and the darker the color green for a country; the more people read this blog from that country. Looking at this map, it can be easily seen that most of this blog readers come from France. However, Gabon is the second country from which this blog received the most readers. Below are the statistical numbers of visits per country for the day of Thursday, 26 January 2012. As you can see, France gene...

Egyptians jubilate for having topple their dictator Les égyptiens jubilent pour avoir fait tomber leur dictateur Gabonese jubilate for beating Niger in football Les gabonais jubilent pour avoir battu le Niger au football English version While the Gabonese people are being asked by a de facto monarchy to dance in the street because they have beaten Niger, to the north of the continent, away from CAN 2012, the Egyptian people are slowly building strong foundations for a true and lasting democracy. While Gabon is a country of only about one million people, Egypt is a large, mostly Arab, mostly Muslim country of about 80 million people, making it the third-largest in Africa. Gabon has been ruled since 1967 by Omar Bongo (until 2009) and his son (until now), while Egypt was ruled by Hosni Mubarak from 1981 until February 2011. During Mubarak's rule, Egyptians won the African Cup of Nations of football 5 times (86, 98, 2006, 2008 and 2010), while Gabon has won ...

English version Following the victory of Gabon against Niger on Monday in Libreville, this blog received numerous taunting messages from some Gabonese who essentially were calling this blog stance of not approving of this CAN, an unpatriotic act unworthy of a true Gabonese person. Here is this blog response to these people. The etymological meaning of the word patriotism is: love for one's ancestry, culture or homeland. It is derived from the Greek kputrios (of one's fathers) or patris (one's fatherland). Most good dictionaries define a "patriot" as: "one who disinterestedly or self-sacrificingly exerts himself to promote the well-being of his country." A patriot is therefore: "one who maintains and defends his country's freedom or rights." Originally, the term meant one who supported the rights of "country" or "land" against the King and his court. In other words, a patriot stood for the rights of th...

The clash between sporting fantasies and the reality of everyday life for ordinary Gabonese people Le clash entre les fantasmes sportifs et la réalité de la vie de tous les jours des gabonais ordinaires English version For the past few days and probably over the next few weeks, the Gabonese government medias will attempt to use CAN 2012 as an opportunity to try to argue that the country is rapidly progressing toward development fueled by reforms and good governance. However, this blog believes that the football fanfare will not be able to mask the serious some underlying problems plaguing the country. Despite what is being said or shown in government owned medias, the harsh reality remains the grinding poverty that continues to affect the majority of the people's lives. In fact according to a group of Gabonese businessmen operating in the construction's sector, CAN 2012 is serving as a boondoggle for a very few and carefully selected group of companies that...