The president of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, on Thursday appointed the country’s first woman prime minister, Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda.
In a statement, the president’s office said her mission will include “ensuring (Gabon‘s) economic relaunch and necessary social support in the light of the world crisis linked to COVID-19″.
Heavily dependent on income from oil, the central African state has been badly hit by the slump in the price of crude as well as the impact of the new coronavirus on trade.
Oussouka Raponda is an economist by training who graduated from the Gabonese Institute of Economy and Finance, specialising in public finance.
Her new appointment comes at a time when opposition and civil society leaders are once more openly questioning Bongo’s fitness to govern after he suffered a stroke in October 2018.
He spent months abroad for treatment, and during this time the country was rocked by an attempted coup, in January 2019.
Several months later, the authorities launched a vast anti-corruption drive that led to the incarceration of Bongo’s right-hand man Brice Laccruche Alihanga and 20 associates, including four former ministers.
Bongo was elected in 2009 after the death of his father Omar who led the country for 42 years.
The president reappeared in the media on Monday after several weeks of absence, pictured at a meeting of heads of the various branches of the armed forces and police.
He said the president had instructed her to form a new government to run the affairs of the central Africa oil producer. She is the fifth premier to serve under the Ali Bongo presidency.
But Prime Minister Raponda is not new to political history. She became the first woman to be elected mayor of the capital Libreville in 2014.
The role of PM has so far being occupied by 11 men since the first occupant in the person of Leon M’ba.The PM post was abolished between 1961 and 1975.
The longest serving PM was Leon Mebiame who lasted 15 years in the role under the presidency of Omar Bongo, father of the current president.
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