Both sides in Gabon poll predict win as votes are counted

Gabon’s opposition presidential candidate Jean Ping has claimed victory over incumbent President Ali Bongo, whose family has ruled the oil-rich African nation for almost half a century.

“Ali Bongo has made a decision to ignore the election and to stay in power”.

“I have been elected”. “As I speak to you, the trends indicate we are the victor of this important presidential election”.

A total of ten candidates are contesting in Saturday’s presidential elections, including incumbent president Bongo.

Ping and the younger Bongo worked for years together under Bongo senior, who was responsible for getting the current opposition leader his job as chairman of the AUC.

“In a few hours, in a few days, we will finally be free”, he said Sunday.

Both sides have accused the other of fraud at some polling stations.

“We can confirm that our candidate, Ali Bongo Ondimba, will win.we are already on our way to a second mandate”, said Bongo’s spokesman, Alain-Claude Bilie-By-Nze, adding that he could not offer exact voting figures at this stage.

“The fight is tight but we are confident our candidate will win”, Simard told Al Jazeera.

Despite Ping’s optimism, Interior Minister Pacome Moubelet Boubeya said official results would be released on Tuesday afternoon and stressed it was “illegal to declare results before the relevant authorities do”.

The head of the Pan-African Democracy Observatory, an NGO based in neighbouring Togo, downplayed the significance of Ping’s declaration.

“We are preparing to celebrate the victory and the change”, he told the media after casting his vote.

Earlier Sunday, after Ping’s camp had said it was well on the way to victory and that Bongo was trying to “trying to push his way through”, with the backing of the army, the president’s spokesman was dismissive.

His team had said that a Friday court ruling would allow soldiers, who tend to support Bongo, a former defence minister, to “vote several times in several polling centres”.

But protracted negotiations led all the key challengers to pull out and put their weight behind Ping, with the last of them withdrawing only last week.

Both candidates have promised to break with the past.

Back then, several people were killed in the clashes, buildings were looted and the French consulate in Port Gentil, which saw the worst of the violence, was torched.

Faced with repeated charges of nepotism, Bongo has long insisted he owes his presidency to merit and his years of government service.

An oil producer with a tiny population of less than 2 million, Gabon is one of Africa’s richest countries.

Recent months have seen growing popular unrest and numerous public sector strikes as well as thousands of layoffs in the oil sector.