In late December André Mba Obame-the secretary-general of the leading opposition party, Union nationale (UN)-returned after a prolonged stay in France to a popular welcome in the Gabonese capital, Libreville, from several thousand of his supporters. The reception was particularly fervent as his arrival came just days after the broadcast on French television of a documentary about Franco-African relations entitled Françafrique. The programme included allegations by several former French officials that the presidential poll held in Gabon in August 2009 was rigged, with French assistance, and that Mr Mba Obame was the rightful winner, as he has claimed ever since. Indeed, Michel de Bonnecorse, who was the adviser on Africa to a former French president, Jacques Chirac, even offered what he claimed to be the true poll scores of the two leading candidates: 42% for Mr Mba Obame and 37% for the president, Ali Bongo Ondimba.

Unsurprisingly, the UN leader has leapt on the documentary's allegations as proof of his claim to have won the 2009 poll. In addressing the crowds that turned out to greet him in Libreville, Mr Mba Obame demanded that Mr Bongo resign, referred to himself as the "president-elect", and vowed to form a government imminently. He has also launched a legal challenge against the conduct of the election-and the subsequent killing of protestors by the security services in the country's economic capital, Port-Gentil-in Belgium, where courts assert universal jurisdiction in such matters.

Meanwhile, the ruling Parti démocratique gabonais (PDG), headed by Mr Bongo, has refuted the claims aired in the documentary, accusing the corrupt Franco-Gabonese old guard of lying in order to defend its privileges against the president's drive to clean up politics. The ruling party's hand was strengthened a few days after the documentary aired, when Mr de Bonnecorse disavowed the allegation he apparently made, claiming that his words had been taken out of context by the programme's producers.