Gabon: what will the National Dialogue be used for?

This Tuesday, the National Dialogue opened in Libreville, launched with great fanfare by Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the president of the Gabonese Transition. On the menu, a month of discussions and negotiations.

This is one of the strong images of the opening of the National Dialogue which has just opened in Gabon: during the opening ceremony, several known opponents, although excluded from this dialogue, were invited to participate in the 'inauguration. The other rather comical symbol for a national event is the presence alongside Clotaire Oligui Nguema, the president of the Gabonese Transition, of Faustin-Archange Touadéra, the Central African president, who was in fact invited to the ceremony of 'opening. The Central African Republic has been very active in getting the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) to lift sanctions against Gabon.

The National Dialogue was expected since the coup d'état against Ali Bongo. And it must make it possible to draft and vote on legal texts to exit the transition, in 2025. But, promises the power in place, if “this dialogue will also address subjects linked to politics”, it will not be partisan. The National Dialogue “can neither be a politician nor a politician in the sense of partisan struggles for conservation, for the conquest of power. It is rather a political exchange in the noblest sense of the word, that is to say the resolution of the community's problems through discussion,” assures Clotaire Oligui Nguema.

However, it will necessarily be a question of a detail which is not a detail: the possibility – or not – for Clotaire Oligui Nguema to present himself in the next presidential election. The participants in the dialogue have one month to agree on this question and many others. If Oligui Nguema promised that he would return power to civilians at the end of the transition, the opposition already expects this to change. “If, during the meetings, it is decided that General Oligui Nguema will be present in these elections, this no longer binds General Oligui Nguema. It’s dialogue that allows him to present himself,” says Marc Ona Essangui, the main figure in Gabonese civil society, to RFI.

At the end of the National Dialogue, a referendum will be organized. But already, we realize that the economy and social issues are of little interest to the participants who wish to place themselves in purely political commissions. However, the power in place would have liked the coming month to be devoted to all questions of a general nature, where the opposition in particular prefers to prepare the ground for the post-Ali Bongo era.

Finally, the crucial question remains: will this National Dialogue really be useful? We know it, in most countries, national dialogues are failures, at worst, and at best do not really move things forward. They are often, for the powers in place, a way of “playing for time”. “The risk cannot be excluded that this dialogue gives birth to a mouse. We can also arrive at recommendations as in the past and the power in place can choose what suits it and refuse what does not suit it,” RFI summarizes.