Gabon appoints first woman Prime Minister Ossouka

Gabon appoints first woman Prime Minister, Ossouka Raponda

The president of Gabon, Ali Bongo Ondimba, has appointed the country’s first female Prime Minister, Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda despite calls for him to step down and allow a new election because of his ill-health after suffering a massive stroke which kept him out of the country for nearly a year taking treatment in North African country of Morocco. His choice as PM is Rose Christine Ossouka Raponda, 56, she was promoted from the defence ministry and takes over from Julien Nkoghe Bekale, who was appointed prime minister in January 2019. Even though the office of the Prime Minister is not much talked about but her choice as an Economist makes her appointment interesting. The country is faced with the challenges of relaunching Gabon’s economy and secondly faced with the COVD-19 economic realities. She is an economist by training who graduated from the Gabonese Institute of Economy and Finance, specializing in public finance.

In 2012, she first became budget minister and then the first female mayor of the capital Libreville in 2014, as a candidate for Bongo’s Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG).

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 oil as well as the impact of the new coronavirus on trade. Ossouka Raponda’s 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. The putsch bid lasted only a matter of hours, but was followed by a reshuffle that installed Nkoghe Bekale as prime minister and Ossouka Raponda as defence minister. Several months later, the authorities launched a vast anticorruption 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 last month after several weeks of absence, pictured at a meeting of heads of the various branches of the armed forces and police. Congratulations Rose Christiane Ossouka Raponda, Gabon First Female Prime Minister