Rivals reach tenuous deal on poll recount

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September 20, 2016 7:42 PM

Bongo was proclaimed the winner of the vote by a razor-thin margin of just under 6,000 votes, triggering violent protests

Ali Bongo was proclaimed the winner of the August 27 vote by a razor-thin margin of just under 6,000 votes, triggering violent protests as the opposition cried foul

Lawyers for President Ali Bongo and opposition leader Jean Ping told AFP on Tuesday said they have agreed to a poll recount for August's contested presidential vote, though the methodology remains in dispute.

"The parties have reached agreement on a vote recount," said Ping's lawyer Jean-Remy Batsantsa, which Bongo's lawyer Francis Nkea confirmed, while adding there was disagreement on the extent of a recount.

"We agreed on a recount in the 2,579 polling stations" across the country, Bongo's lawyer said.

"We must avoid discriminating between Haut-Ogooue and the eight other provinces."

Ping went to the Constitutional Court on September 8 to demand a recount in the province of Bongo's fiefdom Haut-Ogooue, where the incumbent received 95 percent of the vote on a 99 percent turnout in the August 27 poll.

Bongo was proclaimed the winner of the vote by a razor-thin margin of just under 6,000 votes, triggering violent protests as the opposition cried foul.

Jean-Gaspard Ntoutoume Ayi, a spokesman for Ping, said the opposition wanted to see the court sift through all vote counts rather than just those signed off by the electoral commission.

But Nkea responded: "The law says a recount is on the basis of official counts... (meaning) the electoral commission's."

After the result was announced, Ping warned of serious instability if the court -- which has 15 days to decide amid rumours of a delay -- rejected his recount appeal.

Bongo responded by saying that Ping had indulged in a "violent campaign of lies and denigration" which was to blame for post-poll unrest.

An EU election observer mission earlier said there was a "clear anomaly in the final result in Haut-Ogooue".

Ping compared the Supreme Court the Tower of Pisa "because it always leans to the side of the ruling power".

But he also told supporters "2016 is not 2009", a reference to the last presidential election when the Constitutional Court upheld Bongo's victory.

The Central African nation has been ruled by the Bongo family since 1967.

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