Gabon Military Officers Say They Are Seizing Power

A group of military officers appeared on television in the oil-rich Central African nation of Gabon early Wednesday and announced that they were seizing power, less than an hour after the incumbent president, Ali Bongo Ondimba, was declared to have won a third term in office.

The officers, who claimed to represent the major arms of the security forces, said they were canceling the results of last weekend’s election, suspending the government and closing the country’s borders until further notice.

There was no immediate reaction from Mr. Bongo, one of France’s closest allies in Africa, or his government. Bursts of gunfire were heard in the capital, Libreville, shortly after the broadcast ended. Residents said the shots appeared to be coming from the same area as the presidential residence.

“We have decided to defend the peace by putting an end to the current regime,” a spokesman for the officers, mostly of colonel rank, said on a state-owned television station Gabon 24.

If it succeeds, the unexpected coup would be the latest in an extraordinary run of military takeovers in Western and Central Africa — at least nine in the past three years, including one in Niger last month.

The coup was an ominous development for France, the former colonial power in Gabon. The Bongo family has been among France’s staunchest allies for decades in Africa, where French influence is rapidly declining.

French companies dominate Gabon’s oil and timber industries, and 400 French troops are based in the country. France is following events in Gabon “with the greatest attention,” Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne said in a statement on Wednesday.

China, which accounts for about half of Gabon’s exports, also expressed concern. A foreign ministry spokesman in Beijing appealed for calm and called on “all sides” to ensure Mr. Bongo’s safety.

Eremet, a French mining group that employs 8,000 people in Gabon, said it was suspending its operations.

Many of the recent takeovers in Africa occurred in countries that had been destabilized by insurgent violence, like Mali and Burkina Faso, or by intramilitary tensions, like Sudan. But in Gabon, the coup seemed to be aimed squarely at one of Africa’s most enduring political dynasties.

The Bongos have ruled Gabon, a country of 2.3 million people on Africa’s Atlantic coast, for over half a century. Mr. Bongo, 64, was about to begin his third term since becoming president in 2009. He took over from his father, Omar Bongo, who had been in power since 1967.

The voting last weekend was tense, with loud opposition claims of rigging and fears that, as in many previous elections in Gabon, it would end in violence. Many people had left the capital for the weekend, fearing trouble. After the polls closed, the government imposed a nightly curfew and restricted internet access.

Around 3 a.m. on Wednesday, the national electoral authority declared on television that Mr. Bongo had won the election with 65 percent of the vote. It said that his main rival, Albert Ondo Ossa, had got 31 percent.

But minutes later, gunfire was heard in the center of the city. Soon after that, about a dozen mutinous officers appeared on Gabon 24 and announced that they were “putting an end to the regime.”

A spokesman for group, which called itself the Committee for the Transition and Restoration of Institutions, denounced what he called “irresponsible and unpredictable governance” under Mr. Bongo that “ran the risk of leading the country into chaos.”

“People of Gabon, we are finally on the road to happiness,” the spokesman said.

The statement offered few clues about the group, its level of support across the military or its intentions for Gabon, which is Africa’s seventh-largest oil producer and a member of OPEC.

Many of the putschists wore the uniform of the Republican Guard, the elite unit charged with protecting the president. Residents identified one as a former aide-de-camp to Mr. Bongo.

The attempted coup came as a complete surprise to many in Libreville, where residents woke up on Wednesday to news of potentially momentous change after a half-century under the Bongo family. Despite that, there was a semblance of normality in the center of the city, where some shops opened and traffic circulated. The internet was working.

A spokesman for Mr. Bongo could not be reached.

President Emmanuel Macron of France hosted the French-educated Mr. Bongo in Paris in June, when the two leaders were pictured smiling together. That was a welcome show of unity at a time when France is grappling with a wave of anti-French sentiment in former colonies in Africa.

In Mali and Burkina Faso, recently installed military juntas have compelled Paris to withdraw its diplomats and thousands of soldiers. France has backed threats by a bloc of Western African states to take military action against the junta in Niger, which has been holding the deposed president, Mohamed Bazoum, since his ouster in late July. And last week the junta ordered the French ambassador, Sylvain Itte, to leave by Sunday night. As of Tuesday, he was still in the country.

In recent years Gabon has emerged as a leader in the lucrative new market for carbon credits. Nearly 90 percent of the country is covered in rainforest, an asset that Mr. Bong sought to monetize by selling carbon credits potentially worth billions of dollars to foreign businesses and governments.

Despite those riches, poverty is endemic in Gabon, where half of the population is under the age of 20. Nearly 40 percent of Gabonese aged 15 to 24 are unemployed, according to the World Bank.

Elian Peltier contributed reporting from Niamey, Niger.