The timing of Mr Mba Obame's announcement is in one sense odd, given that the disputed presidential election results were published in September 2009. Although there was significant unrest in the opposition's heartlands immediately after the poll, this was soon suppressed by the regime of the victorious candidate, Ali Bongo Ondimba (the son of the previous president, Omar Bongo Ondimba). Since then, the president has managed to consolidate his rule and has won broad popular acceptance-or at least the benefit of the doubt to honour his reform promises; even the opposition appeared to accept his rule, however grudgingly, as a fait accompli, with signs of a rapprochement between Mr Bongo and the leader of a major opposition group, Union des peuples gabonais (UPG), for example. (The UPG leader, Pierre Mamboundou, who came second in the 2009 presidential poll, has hedged his bets with regard to Mr Mba Obame's self-proclamation as president, neither condemning nor endorsing it.)