Gabon's old guard PM 'Bilie' challenges coup leader for presidency
Summary
LIBREVILLE, April 2 (Reuters) - Alain Claude Bilie By Nze enjoyed just seven months as prime minister of Gabon before a 2023 military coup. Now "Bilie", as he is known, is back to face off against putsch leader Brice Oligui Nguema in this month's presidential election.
Nguema's takeover, which ousted President Ali Bongo and ended the Bongo family's nearly 56-year dynasty, drew widespread support in the Central African country. Nze's challenge as the main opposition candidate will be to persuade voters that electing Nguema would cement the military's grip on power.
Rebranding as a credible opposition leader is a tall order for a man so closely associated with the old guard.
Nze, 57, was appointed in 2012 as an adviser to Ali Bongo, who served as president for nearly 14 years. Bongo had taken over in 2009 after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who had ruled since 1967. Several ministerial roles followed for Nze, including a long stint as government spokesman.
The August 2023 coup took place amid growing public criticism of the Bongo family, who are widely blamed for failures to fairly distribute the nation's oil wealth, leaving a third of its 2.3 million people in poverty. Detractors also questioned Bongo's fitness to govern after a stroke in 2018.
"It is a challenging situation for (Nze), given that people typically think of him as a candidate that represents, in some measure, the old order," said Rogers Orock, a Gabon expert at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.
"But I would argue that he would perhaps emphasise more the danger of a permanent or long-term military government."
Ahead of the April 12 election, Nze has tried to distance himself from the Bongo family and the military. In 2024 he left the Bongos' Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) and created his own movement, "Together for Gabon", after several PDG members defected to the junta's transitional government.
In a book published last year entitled "Daring to Hope for Another Gabon", Nze acknowledged that the old regime had lasted too long. "Whatever the positive aspects of Ali Bongo's performance," he wrote, "citizens needed change."
PRAGMATIC APPROACH
Nze went to a vocational secondary school to train as a policeman before studying literature at Gabon's main public university, named after Omar Bongo, in the capital Libreville.
He founded the university's student union and was expelled in 1994 for allegedly humiliating a rector during a student strike that sparked clashes with the authorities.
"He was studious, brilliant and disciplined," said former transport minister Eric Joel Bekale, who has been friends with Nze since school.
"But he was like sleeping water," Bekale said, playing on a French expression used to describe people with a forceful character who appear calm on the surface.
During his campaign for president, Nze has presented himself as an experienced politician with a pragmatic approach to resolving Gabon's political and economic problems.
Despite its oil riches, infrastructure in the densely forested and sparsely populated country is poor, and the nation is highly dependent on food imports.
Nze has promised to boost the private sector and create jobs, improve access to healthcare, water and electricity, and streamline the government to reduce costs.
He also said that he would revise bilateral cooperation and military accords with France amid a growing regional backlash against the former colonial power.
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