Gabon’s President Ali Bongo has been re-elected with 49 percent of the vote, the country’s election commission told Reporters on Wednesday, defeating his main challenger Jean Ping, who got 48 percent in the final vote count.
Members of Gabon’s election commission (Cenap) on Wednesday confirmed reports that the official body had approved Bongo’s victory.
The official announcement is set to be made by the interior minister in a nationwide television address later Wednesday.
Bongo, 57, was running for a second term as head of the tiny oil-rich state previously ruled for 41 years by his father, Omar.
Ping, a 73-year-old career diplomat well-known on the international scene, worked with Bongo senior for many years.
Cenap members voted by secret ballot to approve a vote count from the Saturday poll that was disputed by delegates from the Ping camp.
"The opposition abstained," a delegate from Ping’s camp told the AFP.
At issue was the result in one of the country's nine provinces -- the Haut-Ogooue, the heartland of Bongo's Teke ethnic group.
A report claimed Bongo had won 95.5 percent of votes in the province, with turnout at 99.9 percent.
That gave Bongo a total 49.9 percent of votes nationwide, narrowly defeating Ping's 48.2 percent -- or a win with a tiny margin of just 5,594 votes.
Tensions have been rising in the West African nation amid fears of a repeat of the violence that followed Gabon’s disputed 2009 election.
Soldiers and police were deployed in the capital of Libreville Monday after Ping declared himself the winner in a Twitter post and called on Bongo to “abide by the verdict of the polls and to recognise his defeat".
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