Map - Gabon (Gabonese Republic)

Gabon (Gabonese Republic)
Flag of Gabon
Gabon, officially the Gabonese Republic (République gabonaise), is a country on the west coast of Central Africa. Located on the equator, it is bordered by Equatorial Guinea to the northwest, Cameroon to the north, the Republic of the Congo on the east and south, and the Gulf of Guinea to the west. It has an area of nearly 270000 sqkm and its population is estimated at million people. There are coastal plains, mountains (the Cristal Mountains and the Chaillu Massif in the centre), and a savanna in the east.

Since its independence from France in 1960, the sovereign state of Gabon has had three presidents. In the 1990s, it introduced a multi-party system and a democratic constitution that aimed for a more transparent electoral process and reformed some governmental institutions. Despite this, the Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG) remains the dominant party. With petroleum and foreign private investment, it has the fourth highest HDI in the region (after Mauritius, Seychelles and South Africa) and the fifth highest GDP per capita (PPP) in all of Africa (after Seychelles, Mauritius, Equatorial Guinea and Botswana). Its GDP grew by more than 6% per year from 2010 to 2012.

The official language is French. Bantu ethnic groups constitute around 95% of the country's population, and Christianity is the most practiced religion, practiced by about 75% of the population.

Pygmy peoples in the area were largely replaced and absorbed by Bantu tribes as they migrated. By the 18th century, a Myeni-speaking kingdom known as the Kingdom of Orungu formed as a trading centre with the ability to purchase and sell slaves, and fell with the demise of the slave trade in the 1870s.

Explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza led his first mission to the Gabon-Congo area in 1875. He founded the town of Franceville and was later colonial governor. Some Bantu groups lived in the area when France officially occupied it in 1885.

In 1910, Gabon became a territory of French Equatorial Africa, a federation that survived until 1958. In World War II, the Allies invaded Gabon in order to overthrow the pro-Vichy France colonial administration. On 28 November 1958, Gabon became an autonomous republic within the French Community, and on 17 August 1960, it became fully independent.

The first president of Gabon, elected in 1961, was Léon M'ba, with Omar Bongo Ondimba as his vice president. After M'ba's accession to power, the press was suppressed, political demonstrations suppressed, freedom of expression curtailed, other political parties gradually excluded from power, and the Constitution changed along French lines to vest power in the Presidency, a post that M'ba assumed himself. When M'ba dissolved the National Assembly in January 1964 to institute one-party rule, an army coup sought to oust him from power and restore parliamentary democracy. French paratroopers flew in within 24 hours to restore M'ba to power. After days of fighting, the coup ended and the opposition was imprisoned, with protests and riots.

When M'Ba died in 1967, Bongo replaced him as president. In March 1968, Bongo declared Gabon a 1-party state by dissolving BDG and establishing a new party – the Parti Democratique Gabonais (PDG). He invited all Gabonese, regardless of previous political affiliation, to participate. Bongo sought to forge a single national movement in support of the government's development policies, using PDG as a tool to submerge the regional and tribal rivalries that had divided Gabonese politics in the past. Bongo was elected president in February 1975; in April 1975, the position of vice president was abolished and replaced by the position of prime minister, who had no right to automatic succession. Bongo was re-elected President in December 1979 and November 1986 to 7-year terms. In 1990, economic discontent and a desire for political liberalization provoked demonstrations and strikes by students and workers. In response to grievances by workers, Bongo negotiated with them on a sector-by-sector basis, making wage concessions. He promised to open up PDG and to organize a national political conference in March–April 1990 to discuss Gabon's future political system. PDG and 74 political organizations attended the conference. Participants essentially divided into 2 "loose" coalitions, ruling PDG and its allies, and the United Front of Opposition Associations and Parties, consisting of the breakaway Morena Fundamental and the Gabonese Progress Party.

The April 1990 conference approved political reforms, including creation of a national Senate, decentralization of the budgetary process, freedom of assembly and press, and cancellation of an exit visa requirement. In an attempt to guide the political system's transformation to multiparty democracy, Bongo resigned as PDG chairman and created a transitional government headed by a new Prime Minister, Casimir Oye-Mba. The Gabonese Social Democratic Grouping (RSDG), as the resulting government was called, was smaller than the previous government and included representatives from some opposition parties in its cabinet. RSDG drafted a provisional constitution in May 1990 that provided a basic bill of rights and an independent judiciary and retained "strong" executive powers for the president. After further review by a constitutional committee and the National Assembly, this document came into force in March 1991.

Opposition to PDG continued after the April 1990 conference, and in September 1990, 2 coup d'état attempts were uncovered and aborted. With demonstrations after the death of an opposition leader, the first multiparty National Assembly elections in almost 30 years took place in September–October 1990, with PDG garnering a majority. 
Currency / Language 
ISO Currency Symbol Significant figures
XAF Central African CFA franc Fr 0
ISO Language
FR French language
Neighbourhood - Country  
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