Gabonese voters began casting ballots on Saturday in a presidential election with eight candidates that is widely expected to make junta chief Brice Oligui Nguema the oil-rich central African country’s first elected leader since his 2023 coup.

Oligui, the general who led the August 30, 2023, putsch that ended 55 years of iron-fisted dynastic rule by the Bongo family, who were accused of looting Gabon’s wealth, has been leading in opinion polls.

Snaking queues were seen outside polling stations in Libreville, the seaside capital.

Aurele Ossantanga Mouila, 30, voted for the first time ever after finishing his shift as a croupier in a casino.

“I did not have confidence in the earlier regime,” he said.

Oligui took the role of transitional president while overseeing the formation of a government that includes civilians, tasked with drawing up a new constitution.

The country of 2.3 million people is casting ballots at a time of high unemployment, regular power and water shortages, a lack of infrastructure and heavy government debt.

Despite successive plans, only 2,000 of the 10,000 kilometres (6,213 miles) of roads in the country are “usable”, according to official data. Derailments are frequent on the sole rail link, and youth unemployment exceeds 60 percent in rural areas.

Oligui ditched his military uniform as he campaigned for a seven-year term against seven rivals, including Alain-Claude Bilie By Nze, who served as prime minister under Ali Bongo before the coup.

Around 920,000 voters are eligible to cast their ballots from 7:00 am (0600 GMT), with the polling stations closing at 6:00 pm and final results expected on Monday.

Oligui has predicted a “historic victory” in the election.

“The builder is here, the special candidate, the one you called,” Oligui said Thursday among the music and dancing at his closing rally in the capital, Libreville.

But critics accuse Oligui, who had promised to hand power back to civilians, of failing to move on from the years of plunder of the country’s vast mineral wealth under the Bongos, whom he served for years.

Oligui’s image has been plastered all over the capital Libreville alongside his campaign slogan “C’BON” — a play on the French words for “It’s good” and the junta chief’s initials — while those of his rivals are nowhere to be seen.

Bilie By Nze, his main opponent, has cast himself as the candidate for a “complete rupture”.

He has accused Oligui, who led the Republican Guard in the Bongo years, of representing a continuity of the old system.

Oligui served as patriarch Omar Bongo’s former aide-de-camp before becoming chief of the presidential guard under his son Ali Bongo.

Whoever wins will have to meet the high hopes of a country where one in three people lives below the poverty line despite its vast resource wealth, according to the World Bank.

Gabon’s debt rose to 73.3 percent of GDP last year and is projected to reach 80 percent this year.

Analyst Neyer Kenga likewise pointed to “the return to constitutional order” as one of the key campaign issues, in the hope that the vote puts an end to the country’s strife.

In the past weeks, the interior ministry has been at pains to insist Saturday’s vote will be “a transparent ballot and an election accessible” to all.

Punch/Adebukola Aluko

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