Gabon 1999

In 1999, the population of Gabon was estimated at approximately 1.2 million people. The economy of the country is based largely on oil, timber and manganese. Its main industries are oil production, forestry and fishing. Gabon has a long history of strong foreign relations with other countries in Africa and beyond. In terms of politics, Gabon has a presidential system with Omar Bongo as President since 1967. He was re-elected in 1998 for his fourth term in office and his Gabonese Democratic Party continued to hold a majority in Parliament. See ethnicityology for Gabon in the year of 2018.

Yearbook 1999

Gabon 1999

Gabon. As a result of the December 1998 re-election of President Omar Bongo, the government was reformed in January. Visit Countryaah official website to get information about the capital city of Gabon. Former Prime Minister of Housing and Urban Planning, Jean-François Ntoutoume Emane, was appointed new Prime Minister. He is one of the president’s closest confidants, with more than 20 years of government experience, and led Bongo’s reelection campaign.

  • Also see Abbreviationfinder.org to see the acronym of GAB which stands for Gabon and other definitions of this 3-letter abbreviation.

Map of Gabon Libreville in English

Land area 267,667 km²
Total population 2.230.908
Population density (per km²) 8.3
Capital Libreville
Official language French
Income per capita $ 18,100
Currency CFA franc BEAC
ISO 3166 code GA
Internet TLD .ga
License plate G
Telephone code +241
Time zone UTC + 1
Geographic coordinates 1 00 S, 11 45 O

The ongoing fighting in neighboring Congo-Brazzaville led to increased refugee flows into Gabon during the latter part of the year, which requested assistance from the UN to cope with the reception. At least 10,000 Congolese came across the border in no time.

HISTORY

At the beginning of the 21st century. Gabon continued to play a mediating role in central African conflicts, in particular in resolving the crisis in the neighboring Republic of Congo, and in the repatriation of Congolese refugees still present in its territory. After the reconfirmation of O. Bongo in the 1998 presidential elections, in power since 1967, the political consultations held in December 2001, severely contested by some formations (abstained from voting in protest), confirmed the hegemony of the ruling party, the Parti démocratique gabonais (PDG), which with 86 seats out of 120it regained the majority of seats already held in the previous elections of 1996, while the main opposition party, the Rassemblement pour le Gabon (RPG), won 6. In January 2002 the new government was formed, at the head of which J.-F. Ntoutoume Emane was reconfirmed; the priorities it announced were the fight against corruption and measures to alleviate poverty in the country. The administrative elections of December 2002 saw a new overwhelming victory for the PDG, but recorded a very low participation in the vote in some areas of the country (less than 20%). The opposition once again denounced arbitrary manipulations of the national electoral register, from which about 240,000 people had been canceled since 2001.

In July 2003, while protest and social tension grew in the country, Parliament voted an exception to the Constitution to allow President Bongo to run for another term; the measure, contested by the opposition, paved the way for Bongo in the presidential elections of November 2005. With about 79 % of the votes, the president in office got the better of P. Mamboundou, of the Union du peuple gabonais (UPG), who won only 14 % of the votes. In January 2006 the great African leaders (among others the presidents of Senegal, Nigeria and the Republic of South Africa, and the king of Morocco Muḥammad vi) attended the investiture ceremony of Bongo, the politically longest-lived leader of the entire continent, in anticipation of the important African Union summit of 23-24 of the same month in the capital of Sudan, Khartoum. In foreign policy, relations with Equatorial Guinea broke down in 2003, after the occupation by the Gabon of the uninhabited island of Mbagne – whose waters were potentially rich in oil – over which both countries claimed sovereignty.. After some failed attempts at negotiation, in July 2004 the two countries reached an agreement for the joint exploitation of the disputed territory, pending a definitive resolution to be reached with the mediation of the United Nations.

 

About the author