Editor TLN
13 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of Gabon, Ali Bongo, announced this Monday that the terms of office of elected officials will be limited to a maximum of five years, within the framework of a dialogue with the opposition ahead of the upcoming elections in the African country.
Bongo has indicated in a speech at the opening ceremony of the consultations that the constitution will be amended so that all elected officials are term-limited. Currently, the president’s term is seven years, while that of senators is six years.
However, the Gabonese president has not ruled on whether a term limit will also be introduced, a request from the opposition, as anyone can currently run indefinitely in the elections.
Likewise, it has indicated that both the opposition and the government party present a list of 30 people for the start of the national consultation, with a deadline of this Tuesday to carry out this act, as reported by the news portal Gabon Actu.
The contacts will be extended over the next few days and from them a series of recommendations will emerge which, as Bongo has promised, will be applied to try to reduce the differences between the government and the opposition.
The contact process, which has started in the capital, Libreville, was called by Bongo himself. During it, the Minister of the Interior, Noel Lambert, has asked to approach positions to “avoid slip-ups that have sometimes left many Gabonese families in mourning at the end of the proclamation of the results of the presidential elections”, as reported by the agency Gabonese state news, AGP.
Bongo came to power in 2009 after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who ruled the country for 41 years after winning elections that were criticized by the opposition. In 2016 he was re-elected in an election whose results were not recognized by his rival, Jean Ping.
