I offer Mr. Dennis Francis my warm congratulations on his election to the presidency of the General Assembly at its seventy-eighth session.
I pay tribute to his predecessor. Mr. Csaba Korosi. for the work accomplished during his mandate.
I express my country’s confidence in Secretary- General Antonio Guterres for the bold and multifaceted action and the important reforms he is undertaking with a view to accelerating the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and to promote international peace and security.
I stand before the Assembly in an unprecedented context for my country, which has gone through a fearful time following a chaotic electoral process interrupted on 30 August by the defence and security forces. That intervention was condemned by the international community as a violation of democratic demands for the devolution of power. It will be useful, however, for the sake of providing a balance of information and dispelling certain suspicions, to recall the specific Gabonese political context that preceded and justified the takeover of power. It would be wrong, from our point of view, to condemn without nuance and to make easy assumptions out of tune with the realities of our context.
Let me first remind everyone of the experience of the 2016 presidential election, of which the current situation is one consequence. Everyone remembers that the election was the subject of a detailed report from the European Union Election Observation Mission, which denounced the process as fraudulent, insincere and devoid of transparency, with results defying the laws of statistics. It was mainly characterized by violence, with
the loss of many human lives and significant damage to property for the entire community.
In an attempt to defuse the situation, the social cost of which was high, an ersatz dialogue was organized in 2017 that resulted in the return of two rounds of voting. It was that small concession to democracy that was taken up again in the first half of 2023 before it was even tested. That made it clear that the regime did not intend to abandon its fraudulent strategy. From 2017 to 2022. no preparation for the elections, constitutionally scheduled to be held no later than 26 August 2023. was undertaken. The latter began only in February 2023 and uncovered a large number of breaches and distortions made to the constitutional, legislative and regulatory framework of elections, which included — although the electoral process was already launched — this non-exhaustive inventory: a return to single-round elections; the choice of a president of the Gabonese Elections Centre who is notoriously biased, due to his status as a known member of the ruling party; an unreliable electoral register, tainted by the presence of numerous deceased people; the removal of provisions allowing the representation of all candidates in polling stations, in flagrant violation of the principle of equality; the modification, in violation of the simple principle of the hierarchy of norms, of the legislative provisions resulting from the law establishing provisions common to all political elections by decree; and the coupling of candidacies for the presidential and legislative elections.
We note that all the referrals made by the various components of the opposition and civil society to contest those modifications were rejected without consideration by a Constitutional Court subservient to power. Any attentive, honest and good-faith observer of Gabonese political life in recent years was fully aware of the deterioration of the situation. Everyone within the Gabonese opposition consulted with the diplomatic missions and then, on 9 August 2023. went environment masse to the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Central Africa, residing in Libreville, to warn him of the turning point that the electoral process was approaching and of the danger involved in pursuing it in the light of all these observations.
Now. I want to say again here without ambiguity that neither the political actors nor the voters were ready to accept a new electoral fraud. That determination, known to all. did not prevent the Gabonese Election Centre from transporting the ballot boxes under its exclusive control and without sealing them, or from proceeding fraudulently with modifications to the minutes at the sites where the results were compiled, as distinct from the sites where the ballots were cast. The acceptance of the results obtained in that way could only lead, the day after their announcement, to clashes.
In that context, the defence and security forces were faced with the choice of either preparing to repress the protests, with the risk of sooner or later being prosecuted before international courts because of their responsibility, or to decide to interrupt a process that was fraudulent and dangerous to national cohesion. They responsibly chose the second path to avert the risk of a conflagration whose repercussions would have shaken the very foundations of Gabonese society and would not have spared the numerous foreigners living in Gabon. It would not have been reasonable or responsible to allow such a confusing situation to continue. A descent into a cycle of violence would have constituted an overall disaster.
Consequently, the military intervention, which shed no blood and caused no material damage, was a lesser evil. The population approved of it by a very large majority in scenes of spontaneous jubilation that everyone around the world was able to follow thanks to the images that circulated, and the majority of the political class found themselves relieved to have avoided an uncertain outcome. Therefore, to condemn that process is to maintain that it would have been better to let the clashes take place and to count the number of victims later, since no one in the opposition was willing to let that umpteenth electoral theft take place.
While such an intervention was necessary, we cannot be satisfied with the status quo. We must immediately and in an inclusive manner prepare reforms and restore the normal institutional order that allows the devolution of power through elections. The road map for the transitional Government that I have been leading for two weeks seeks to restore confidence, make major corrections to the electoral framework, restore institutions and prepare for the implementation of those reforms. Following a national conference, the expected deliverables of that consultation will be the adoption of a new constitution reflecting our social contract, as well as the adoption of legislation including, in particular, an electoral law guaranteeing transparent, free and credible voting.
That is why I have already announced a press conference to take place next week, at which I will
indicate the timetable for consultations among the entire political class and civil society. I will take that opportunity to outline the timeline of the different stages that will lead to new elections. In that perspective, what Gabon needs most is encouragement and support to carry out those projects within deadlines that everyone wants to be reasonable. I therefore take this opportunity to launch a solemn appeal to all of our bilateral, regional and multilateral partners to accompany and support the popular momentum for national salvation with a view to strengthening the foundations of the rule of law and democracy for shared prosperity. In this pivotal phase of our destiny and our history, the Gabonese people, who are united in harmony around the Transitional Committee for the Restoration of Institutions, will remember with gratitude the solidarity and confidence of the peoples of Africa and the whole world who stand by its side to help it preserve its place in the concert of nations.
Seventy-eight years after the creation of the United Nations, an endless cycle of crises continues to darken our hopes and prospects for lasting peace among and within nations. Multiple crises of solidarity, security crises, humanitarian crises, health crises, climate crises and geopolitical crises are fuelling feelings of distrust towards international institutions and mechanisms. Indeed, clearly, the system of collective and indivisible security advocated by the Charter of the United Nations is seen as a fiction in many regions of the world that are prey to the upheavals of war. particularly in Africa, where the Sahel region, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes region have become veritable epicentres of instability. In most of those regions, the rapine of natural resources constitutes a significant source of conflict, to the point that they have become a true curse for the countries that possess them.
Today we find ourselves at an inflection point that requires all members of the international community to reacquaint themselves with the objectives of the Charter of the United Nations and to reconnect to the aspirations of the peoples of the world. It is crucial to reconfigure the social contract among nations, regardless of their size or power, keeping in mind that every people counts. Above all. we must recalibrate the projection of our identity as peoples of the world by consistently giving priority to dialogue over confrontation and to cooperation over the logic of opposing camps. We must without further delay carry out a real structural transformation of the peace and security architecture of our Organization, and adapt our mechanisms for promoting peace and security to a global context of constantly changing crises and conflicts. That is the relevance of the theme of this general debate, focused on the need to rebuild trust and reignite solidarity to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Gabon reaffirms that prevention is a more than essential tool that must be at the centre of our actions if we want strengthened and lasting peace. The international community’s prevention efforts to date have been slow, poorly adapted and poorly funded. Indeed, the absence of adequate resources allocated to the actions of our Organization in favour of prevention and peace-building has. unfortunately, strongly contributed either to the resurgence of crises in periods of transition or to the emergence of new conflicts. Our generation has a responsibility to future generations — that of bequeathing them a more secure world; a world in which the threats to peace and security linked to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are contained; a world without the nuclear threat.
There remains a considerable gap between our actions and our commitments. It is time to fill it. particularly on the crucial issue of financing climate action. Gabon has made several decades of investments in the preservation of biodiversity and demonstrated tireless commitment to the fight against climate change. New debt-for-nature financial pacts offer opportunities to increase budgets dedicated to protecting biodiversity, responding to the unsustainability of the debt of developing countries and combating climate change. Through that new green finance mechanism, my country recently benefited from a 3 per cent restructuring of its debt against a commitment to investing $163 million in the preservation of its marine ecosystems.
We must go further in that dynamic. I therefore invite international financial partners to increase debt conversion initiatives to face the challenges of global warming, loss of biodiversity and sustainable development. It is through a multilateral approach and the rethinking of our responses that we can effectively address the multifaceted challenges facing humankind.
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is our common road map to address global challenges. However, with less than 10 years to go. progress is uneven and insufficient. Poverty, hunger, social
inequalities, deficiencies in health and education and the lack of adequate financing for the objectives of sustainable development are seriously jeopardizing the achievement of that ambitious programme.
Throughout the transition that I am leading. I plan to redouble my country’s efforts to accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda by strengthening national policies in a practical and pragmatic manner and encouraging innovative partnerships between the public and private sectors. Furthermore. I intend to place emphasis on action by the authorities, civil society and the private sector at the local level by fully involving citizens, particularly young people and women.
It is critical that the international community increase its support for developing countries. Additional financing is indeed necessary, in particular for the most vulnerable countries. The various summits organized on the sidelines of this session, in particular on financing for development, climate ambition and universal coverage, are an opportunity for the international community to concretize its desire for joint action with a view to accelerating the achievement of the SDGs.
Within the United Nations system, exclusion and marginalization are fearsome underminers of coexistence. Africa must be able to find its rightful place as a full-fledged player on the international scene and not as a mere geopolitical issue for the Powers. Indeed, more than 78 years after the creation of the United Nations, the world has completely changed. The international context has completely changed. The geopolitical landscape has completely changed. The nature of wars has literally been transformed. Technology has completely transformed our daily lives. But the structure of our institutions remains essentially unchanged, particularly with regard to our collective security.
To meet the challenges of the future, our security architecture should reflect current and future realities. We must update our international institutions, our mentalities and our perceptions of lasting peace, shared prosperity and coexistence. We must reinvent solutions to contemporary threats, including climate change and cyberspace insecurity. We must confront the crisis of international solidarity that is fuelling the underlying economic, humanitarian, health and food crises. We cannot meet those challenges of this century with the tools of a bygone century.
In the light of that distressing observation, we are convinced of the urgency of action to give effect to three fundamental approaches capable of making the multilateral system more credible and more inclusive. First, we must reform the Security Council without further delay. It must be representative of today’s realities and of current and future challenges. Secondly, we must redefine our rules and mechanisms to adequately address the evolution of insecurity and terrorism. We must guarantee inclusiveness and solidarity so as to leave no room for double standards. We also need to tackle the root causes of conflicts and crises with greater rigour. Thirdly, we must build a new social contract — a new global pact between generations, between those who govern and those who are governed, and between the global and regional spheres, with particular emphasis on young people, women, civil society and the private sector.
In that new social contract for the future, bridges must replace walls everywhere. Education must everywhere break the shackles of ignorance and intolerance. Multilateralism must prevail over unilateralist postures, and the logic of dialogue must constantly prevail over the logic of antagonism and zones of influence.
To conclude. I would like to emphasize our need to respond to present and future generations. That intergenerational solidarity is a moral demand on behalf of those who will have no other choice but to inherit the consequences of our choices today. We owe them a response that is commensurate with their fears, their needs and their legitimate aspirations to live in peace, dignity and prosperity. It is with regard to those existential perspectives that we have shouldered our responsibilities and that we are resolutely committed to aligning our action with the expectations of our people.