Comment by okket | Hacker News Reader

Comment by okket | Hacker News Reader

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> Update: September 2, 0945 UTC: the Internet remains disconnected in Gabon.

"Statement by the Secretary-General (UN) on the situation in the Gabonese Republic" (from yesterday)

https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2016-09-01/sta...

  I call on the government to immediately restore
  communications, especially the Internet, SMS and the
  independent radio and television.

"Gabon is the latest African country to shut down its internet as election protests grow" (~2h ago)

http://qz.com/771996/gabon-is-the-latest-african-country-to-...

  The government of Gabon shut down the internet on Wednesday
  (Aug. 31) following the announcement president Ali Bongo
  was re-elected by a slim margin for a second seven-year
  term in office.

...a second seven-year term in office.

Wow those are long terms. As obnoxious as a president is after eight years, after fourteen he must be pretty much intolerable.

I think that's understating things. This guy is the son of the previous President, who was in office for 42 years. Seems like more of a dynastic system with a veneer of democracy.

Yep. And the results from the last region were delayed for like 3 days, turned out to have a 99% participation rate and 99.5% voted for the guy.

If elections are going to be basically meaningless anyway, I guess it's OK to do them less often to save money.

The interesting thing is that Gabon shut down the Internet right after announcing the results.

In Congo, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, the internet was shut down right before the votes and stayed shut down for days after.

Looks like someone was unprepared.

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