Military officers in oil-producing Gabon said they had seized power on Wednesday and had put President Ali Bongo under house arrest, stepping in minutes after the Central African state's election body announced he had won a third term.
The officers who said they represented the armed forces declared on television that the election results were canceled, borders were closed and state institutions were dissolved, after a tense vote without international observers that was set to extend the Bongo family's more than half century in power.
Hundreds of people celebrated the military's intervention, while France, Gabon's former colonial ruler which has troops stationed in the African nation, condemned the coup.