Originally scheduled for June 21 in Kigali, the Commonwealth summit was postponed to a later date due to the Covid19 pandemic, but the principle of Gabon’s membership in this organization remains more relevant than ever. Alongside Mozambique and Rwanda, the symbolic country of Françafrique for decades will be the third non-French speaking member to sit in the organization created in 1949. The file was finalized in mid-May, during a stay of the Gabonese President in London, where he met with the Secretary General, Baroness Patricia Scotland.
This initiative represents a real revolution. Gabon is one of the first French-speaking states on the continent to concretely demonstrate its desire to distance itself from Paris. Several motivations are at the origin. The first is economical. With this decision Libreville intends to diversify its partners and adhere to the business dynamics of the English-speaking world by entering a strong organization of 54 members who are far more dynamic economically than those of the Francophonie.
Current coordinator of the Committee of Heads of State and Government of the African Adaptation Initiative (AAI), Libreville wants to benefit from this new situation to capture resources intended to strengthen its programs in the fight against global warming and for development. green, of which he is the precursor. It has already committed to halving its CO2 emissions by 2025.
More than the economic aspect, this membership is determined by the Anglophone tropism of the head of state coupled with a weariness towards France. Against a background of constant distancing from the regime of his father Omar Bongo Ondimba, since coming to power in 2009, Ali Bongo is one of the few French-speaking African presidents to speak Shakespeare’s language fluently, just like the first lady, Sylvia Bongo. Ondimba. A quality that few of its peers in Central Africa can boast of.
Her children went to school in the British capital. Coordinator of Presidential Affairs at the Seaside Palace since 2019, Nourredine Bongo-Valentin graduated from London Business School after studying international relations at the School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.
Ali Bongo, who very quickly developed personal relationships with Gagan Gupta, influential Africa chief of Olam before being named local director of the Singaporean group and becoming a close friend of the presidential couple, also has a house in London. It is in this city where he has established many networks that he usually meets with many personalities such as the intermediary Alexandre Djouhri before the latter’s indictment concerning the investigation into an alleged Libyan financing. of Nicolas Sarkozy’s campaign in 2007. Other relatives such as his former chief of staff Maixent Accrombessi also stay there regularly.
This tropism has also allowed the early establishment of close connections with countries which, like Rwanda, have significantly strengthened their bilateral relationship. From his visit to Kigali in October 2012, Ali Bongo was able to appreciate the linguistic bicephalism of Rwanda and the opportunities to evolve simultaneously between two universes. His admiration for the leadership and management methods of his counterpart is known. Bilateral cooperation has grown steadily in recent years. Paul Kagamé took advantage of his working visit to Libreville in June 2019, on the occasion of the commemoration of the death of Omar Bongo, to strengthen the exchanges. Gabon signed the agreement on the creation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (Zelca) during the extraordinary summit of the African Union (AU) held in the Rwandan capital in 2018. This new posture allows, finally, a calculated distance from France where the Gabonese power has never ceased to be concerned about legal matters. In 2015, Maixent Accrombessi was arrested at Roissy airport in connection with a corruption case involving the French equipment manufacturer Marck. For years, the Seaside Palace has been poisoned by the Gabonese shutter of the so-called Biens Mal Acquis dossier. The cerebrovascular accident (stroke) of which Ali Bongo suffered in 2018 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, allows us to appreciate the paradigm shift. It was in London and not in Paris that the latter decided to continue his convalescence. He also performs all his check-ups there since this incident.
