LIBREVILLE - Gabon will hold a referendum on November 16 on a proposed new constitution, a key step towards the return to a civilian regime which the military junta promised after a coup, the transitional government said.
The August 2023 coup put an end to 55 years of rule by the family of former president Ali Bongo Ondimba.
The draft new constitution includes abolishing the post of prime minister and imposing a seven-year presidential term, renewable once.
The Council of Ministers on Thursday passed the bill, the last component of a transition initiated after the removal of Bongo, according to an official statement sent by Laurence Ndong, spokeswoman for the government led by Brice Oligui Nguema.
"The Council of Ministers has expressed its satisfaction at the completion of the proposed new constitution," the statement said.
"The next decisive step in the transition process will be the organisation of a constitutional referendum."
Lawmakers in early September met to form a "reasoned opinion" on a final text, drafted from a thousand proposals collected during a national dialogue organised in April.
Candidates for head of state would have to be the offspring of Gabonese-born parents, according to a version of the proposed document circulating online -- a claim authorities in the oil-rich country have not denied.
Neither the bill nor the 800 amendments proposed by the parliament have been made public.
The proposed text is notably believed to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman and would also make military service compulsory, while confirming French as the country's official language.
On August 30, 2023, an hour after the official announcement of Bongo's election to a third term since 2009, a military junta proclaimed his rule was over, denouncing what they said was a rigged poll.
The military dissolved the country's institutions and appointed 98 deputies and 70 senators to a transitional parliament.
Oligui has promised to restore civilian rule in Africa's third-richest country in terms of per-capita GDP but where one in three lives below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.
He has not hidden his intention to win a presidential election slated for August 2025.
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