LIBREVILLE, Gabon (AP) – Gabon’s presidential guard attacked the opposition candidate’s party headquarters overnight, killing one person and injuring at least 20 following protests against the re-election of this oil-rich Central African country’s president, opposition representatives said Thursday.
Unrest erupted after Wednesday’s announcement that President Ali Bongo Ondimba had beaten opposition candidate Jean Ping by a narrow margin in Saturday’s vote, extending a family dynasty that has ruled since the 1960s.
The 57-year-old Bongo won with 49.8 percent of the vote, while the 73-year-old Ping had 48.2 percent, according to the electoral commission’s provisional results. Ping’s supporters quickly claimed election fraud.
Around 1 a.m. Thursday, soldiers in green berets, who are known to be part of the presidential guard, shot live rounds during an attack on Ping’s opposition headquarters, injuring at least 20 people, according to Paul Marie Gondjout, an opposition official who was there.
One person was killed, said Ping’s campaign director, Rene Ndemezo’o Obiang.