LIBREVILLE - Big challenges await Gabon's new president Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema as he takes the reins of a country rich in oil but struggling with debt.
The general was sworn in on Saturday after winning 94.85 percent in the April 12 vote in which international observers signalled no major irregularities.
His victory followed a 19-month transition after he took power in a coup in August 2023 that ended the 55-year rule of the Bongo dynasty.
Following his inauguration in front of around 40,000 people at a stadium near the capital Libreville, Oligui enjoys strong popularity as he begins his term but faces high expectations of economic and social reform.
The new 50-year-old president said he measured "with gravity, the immensity of the burden that falls upon him".
He campaigned on six "pillars": reform of the water and electricity sector, youth employment through business promotion, housing and transport, social justice and human capital, sustainable development and governance reform.
Among the pressing issues is the electrical grid, managed by the public company SEEG, which suffers regular failures due to a lack of investment.
Gabon suffers a glaring lack of infrastructure: it has a "highway directorate" but no highways.
Despite successive building plans, only 2,000 of its 10,000 kilometres of roads are usable, according to official data.
The new head of state has cast himself as a "builder", proudly launching or relaunching numerous construction projects, particularly in Libreville.
Campaign posters pictured him wearing a builder's hard hat and public television regularly broadcasts images of buildings under construction.
Among the major projects promised during the campaign was a new north-south railway line linking the deep-water port of Mayumba and the Booue hydroelectric dam.
Faced with the depletion of its oil resources, Gabon needs to diversify its economy.
"There is still dependence on oil," said Francois Gaulme, an associate researcher at the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI).
"The economy needs to be diversified, and this has never been done on a large scale."
Although oil extraction, the bedrock of the economy, has generated billions of annual profits since the first drilling in the 1950s, Gabon's debt has swelled.
From 72 percent of GDP in 2023, it rose to 73 percent in 2024 and is projected to hit 80 percent this year.
Oligui pledged in his speech to work with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank "to better repay our external debt".