By Fanny Pigeaud
Libreville - Distribution of wealth in oil-rich Gabon is a key issue in this weekend's presidential election, with candidates largely agreed that the system of favouritism under the late Omar Bongo must go.
The Gabonese "want no more embezzling of public funds and illicit enrichment", but are looking for "new governance," former prime minister and candidate Jean Eyeghe Ndong told crowds in his rallies ahead of the August 30 vote.
Though a stalwart of the old regime under Omar Bongo Ondimba, who ruled for 41 years, Ndong claims he has got the message from his compatriots, who "think and say only one thing: 'The Bongo system is finished.'"
The system of management by financial handouts enabled Bongo to reward the faithful, but did nothing to develop the equatorial African country, where 23 candidates are running for the presidency.
They include Ali Bongo Ondimba, Bongo's son and the former defence minister, who is the handpicked candidate of the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party, and in that capacity is tipped to win, but also feared.
Sparsely populated, with 1,5 million inhabitants, Gabon has vast mineral and oil wealth, being the fourth-ranking oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, the world's third producer of manganese and the second African producer of tropical hardwood.
But "60 percent of Gabonese live below the vital minimum income threshold... and only two percent of the population really benefits from the wealth of our country," says another candidate, former prime minister Casimir Oye Mba.
Almost no roads exist in the interior of the country, the health and educational systems are in tatters, and according to opposition leader and candidate Pierre Mamboundou, "Gabon needs to be built."
Oye Mba holds that the solution is simple, with a need to "rationalise management and practise good governance at every level, so that all Gabonese reap the fruit of their labour."
Ali Bongo himself has told his supporters he plans on "better management of public finance" and a redistribution of national wealth.
But this will not be so easy, believes sociologist Joseph Tonda. "The spirit of Bongo is going to continue to reign for several years," he said.
The "religion of money" that Bongo developed "goes beyond his character and is entrenched in the physical and mental structure of the whole society" after four decades, Tonda said.
"Students are used to being paid to go on strike and being paid to stop their strike," Tonda claimed, adding that most of the presidential candidates "have lived in this system that shaped them."
"We're trapped in the consumer cycle. To go from a economy that doesn't produce things to one that does will take a long time."
Even if the population denounces the current system, it demands handouts, the sociologist observed, warning that whoever wins the election and "doesn't behave like Bongo" by handing out money to those close to him "won't be there for long."
Tonda recalled the importance of the central African practice of "the gift and the return gift... When a politician goes to a village, he is received and given food: that is the gift. And the return gift that people expect from authority is money."
But a source close to the presidency said "things can't remain like they were. Omar Bongo was somebody who shared. Nobody will have the desire or the capacity to do as he did. There'll be no more Omars, that's over." - Sapa-AFP