Gabon leader vows to ‘complete mission’

Gabonese President Ali Bongo Ondimba on Wednesday completed a decade in office, vowing to push ahead with economic reforms and an anti-corruption drive despite questions over his health after suffering a stroke nearly a year ago.

“I feel good. And feeling better and better each day,” Bongo said in an interview published on Wednesday in the pro-government daily, l’Union. “I will complete my mission.”

Bongo said he was “fiercely determined” to push ahead with a campaign against graft.

Government departments have been shaken up in recent weeks with a string of top-level changes.

“Over time, the standards I require of government members has increased while my level of patience has fallen,” said Bongo.

During his months-long absence abroad for treatment, speculation over Bongo’s fitness surged and the army quashed a brief attempted coup.

At one point his spokesman had to deny rumours that Bongo had died and been replaced by a lookalike, while opposition members made an unsuccessful attempt to have a court assess whether he was fit to rule.

Since returning home, Bongo has attended several wellscripted public events, but every appearance is widely scrutinised for any signs of any disability.

The drama has played out against the backdrop of a stuttering economy in the country of two million.

Bongo initiated an array of major infrastructure projects after coming to power, such as new roads and stadiums, which drew on a flurry of investment from China.

But oil prices slumped after 2014, provoking an economic crisis and discontent, although the country’s political opposition is fractured.

There is widespread nostalgia for the free-spending reign of Bongo’s father, Omar Bongo Ondimba, who ruled the country for 42 years until his death in 2009. –