Gabon's President Names New PM after Local Elections

Gabon's President Ali Bongo Ondimba on Friday named a new prime minister, Daniel Ona Ondo, following municipal and regional elections, a presidential spokesman said.

"The president of the republic has named by decree Mr Daniel Ona Ondo to the post of prime minister and head of government," Bongo's secretary-general Etienne Massard Kabinda Makaga told journalists.

Ona Ondo, who has been serving as first deputy speaker of parliament, replaces Raymond Ndong Sima as government chief in a change that had been widely expected after the poll.

A former minister and economist by academic training, Ona Ondo said that he would form a new government for the oil-rich equatorial African country of 1.6 million people by the end of the week.

"The president thanks and congratulates the former prime minister and his team for their dynamic approach and their republican spirit," Massard said.

Ona Ondo served in several ministerial posts under the president's late father and predecessor, Omar Bongo, notably holding the national education and culture portfolios.

A lawmaker from Bongo's ruling Gabonese Democratic Party (PDG), he was elected to his deputy speaker's post in the National Assembly in 2007.

The PDG, which is deeply implanted across the country, won a substantial majority in the elections of December 14, taking 1,517 of the 2,404 seats at stake, according to provisional official results.

In the coastal capital Libreville, home to about half the population, the PDG failed to gain an absolute majority and shares power with the opposition Center of Liberal Reformers (CLR) and independent politicians.

The definitive election results have yet to be approved and proclaimed by the Constitutional Court.