Gabon President Ali Bongo Ondimba speaks during a trade conference in London in 2018.
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Gabon is resource rich, but the Bongo family’s continuous rule has been bad news for the country of 2.3 million people.
Campaign ads for Ali Bongo in his successful 2009 bid to succeed his father as president of Gabon. The Bongo family has lead Gabon uninterrupted for over 50 years.
Reuters/Daniel Magnowski
Gabon’s strongman president, Ali Bongo, is barely clinging to power after contested elections, a stroke and a coup attempt. The Bongo family has run this stable central African nation for 52 years.
Gabonese President, Ali Bongo Ondimba, wants to be president for life.
Thorston Wagner/EPA
Gabon’s Ali Bongo Ondimba has watched over constitutional changes that have given him far reaching powers.
Democratic Republic of Congo’s President Joseph Kabila. Time to step aside.
Reuters/Kenny Katombe
Africa needs strong institutions. But they can only be built if there’s a change in leadership.
Duo Movaizhaleine and artist Wonda Wendy take a minute’s silence to honor the dead during a concert in Paris, February 2017.
Silber Mba
Rap has become instrumental in constructing identity and radically reshaping relations to politics in Gabon and other African states.
The remains of a burned car outside Gabon’s National Assembly. It was set alight during unrest after the disputed reelection of President Ali Bongo.
Reuters/Edward McAllister
Ali Bongo seems to have won Gabon’s elections. Yet his contested “victory” has radically changed the political field in this soft democracy, one of Africa’s richest and most stable.