Yearbook 2011
Gabon. Opposition politician André Mba Obame declared himself president in January and declared that he had appointed a new government. Obame claimed that he cheated the victory in the 2009 presidential election by cheating. He went to the UN office in the capital Libreville with a call to the World Organization to recognize his takeover of power. There he remained for a month as the government declared his party National unity dissolved with immediate effect and threatened him with charges of treason. Visit ABBREVIATIONFINDER for the acronym of GAB that stands for the country of Gabon.
After lengthy negotiations, he could leave the UN building with his “government” without arrest, but Parliament later deprived him of his legal immunity for prosecution. Obame and all his followers were dismissed from the public service they had. The Supreme Administrative Court subsequently approved the dissolution of Obame’s party.
According to Countryaah official site, the PDG government won 113 of the 120 seats in the parliamentary elections in December, after parts of the opposition boycotted the election in protest of the government saying no to the requirement for biometric voting cards to reduce the possibility of cheating. The turnout was only 34%.
The Gabonese state was reported in July to buy the late US Senator Ted Kennedy’s residence in Washington for US $ 6.5 million. According to The Washington Post, Gabon’s ambassador was to move into the house.
Demography and economic geography. – Central-West African state. The population (1,517,685 at the 2003 census, 1,711,294 residents according to an estimate by UNDESA, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, in 2014), which grows by 2.4% annually, is concentrated in the capital Libreville (695,000 residents, According to a 2014 estimate) with an urbanization rate of 87%. Life expectancy (63.5 years, 2013) is also affected by the spread of HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which affects 4% of adults between the ages of 15 and 49. At 112th place on the Human Development Index, Gabon has a literacy rate of 83%. The upper-middle income – the GDP per capita at purchasing power parity (PPA) it is $ 21,619 – it is based on oil (45% of GDP and 80% of exports), of which Gabon is the fifth largest African producer. After the crisis of 2009, economic growth stood at 6-7% per annum, also supported by the forestry industry (second sector), manganese production and investments in public works (eg optical fiber).
Population
The demographic trend shows low rates of increase (16 ‰ in the period 1980 – 85, 17 ‰ in the period 1990 – 97), largely due to the backwardness of the social conditions of the country and the still high mortality rate (16, 1 ‰). The impact on the growth rate of the migratory movement is more difficult to control, as certain data are lacking, but it is undeniable that the exploitation of oil resources has led to strong flows of labor from neighboring countries. The population, which at the 1993 census was 1,011,700 residents, in 1998 it had risen to 1,167,000 residents. The density is just 4 residents / km ², with a very irregular distribution, conditioned by the contrast between disordered urbanization processes and traditional forms of rural settlement.
Urban growth, which manifested itself in relevant forms after independence (1960), was conditioned by the presence of infrastructures and communication routes and, in more recent years, by the progressive development of the extractive industry: thus the main concentrations are those that have grown around to old cities, such as Libreville, Port-Gentil and Lambaréné, and to the major mining districts in the Masuku region (Franceville) and in the upper Ogoué river basin.