Guinea Elections: 82-Year-Old Alpha Condé Seeking Six More Years in Power
Alpha Condé, Guinea's 82-year-old head of state, will this Sunday ask his country's 5.4 million voters for a third term, opening what promises to be a tense, high-stakes electoral season for West Africa, with contests soon following in Ivory Coast, Ghana and Niger.
If he fails
to clinch outright victory with more than 50% of the vote, the president will
probably have to face off against his leading opponent, Cellou Dalein Diallo,
in a run-off that on past form will probably spark violent confrontation on the
streets of Conakry, the crowded capital city, crammed into a narrow peninsula
jutting out into the Atlantic.
Mr Condé's
accession to power in December 2010 was the first genuinely democratic
handover in his country's 52-year independent history - a saga of
authoritarian and military rule pockmarked with episodes of severe repression
and spectacular brutality, the most recent of which had been the 28 September
2009 massacre, when troops killed at least 160 opposition supporters, and raped
110 women, attending a rally at the national stadium.
He had
himself served jail time for challenging General Lansana Conté, who had ruled
from 1984 to his death in 2008, and he faced a huge task to gradually reform
the security forces and construct a democratically accountable state with a
basic respect for human rights and transparent public finances.
The past 10
years have brought significant progress.
Early fears
of a comeback coup by army hardliners gradually faded, and the military has
been at least partly reformed, with many officers sent into retirement.
A team of
capable technocratic ministers has got the economy back on track, rebuilding a
solid cooperative partnership with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and
the donor community.
Guinea has
huge mineral wealth and regulation of the extractives sector has been
overhauled.
Confidence
among investors has recovered, opening up the prospect that Simandou, one of
the world's largest untapped iron-ore deposits, might finally be exploited -
creating thousands of new livelihoods and the construction of a new rail line
to link the landlocked southern interior to the coast.
As one of
the three countries severely affected by West Africa's 2014-16 Ebola outbreak -
alongside neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia - Guinea developed experience
in tackling infectious disease that it has been able to bring to bear in its
response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
One of the
grand old men of sub-Saharan politics, Mr Condé re-established Guinea's profile
on the African diplomatic stage
But serious
problems persist, particularly in human rights.
Opposition
figures such as Mr Diallo have suffered sporadic harassment, while political
life is still scarred by periodic outbreaks of street violence between
frustrated youthful demonstrators and security forces that, despite retraining,
still frequently resort to lethal force to curb unrest.
Moreover,
the long promised trial of the military figures indicted for the 28 September
massacre has still not taken place, despite a sustained campaign by the
families of victims, foreign diplomatic pressure and hints that the
International Criminal Court (ICC) will step in if the Guinean authorities fail
to act.
At least one
of the soldiers formally indicted has actually held government office under Mr
Condé, while Moussa Dadis Camara - the military ruler whose troops carried out
the massacre - has been questioned but, ultimately, left untroubled in exile in
Burkina Faso.
Capt Camara
remains hugely popular in his home region, Guinée Forestière, and senior
politicians seem reluctant to sanction any move that could threaten hopes of
attracting support there.
In the 2015
election Mr Diallo even formed a bizarre electoral alliance with his camp,
while a key ally of Capt Camara is a senior minister in Mr Condé's government.
That is the
unsettled background contest for this year's election, which has been rendered
hugely contentious by Mr Condé's determination to seek a third term - a move
that has meant changing the constitution, through a referendum in March.
The new
constitution does not scrap two term limits, but resets the counter, so
previous terms served do not count.
Early this
year, the regional body Ecowas (the Economic Community of West African States)
identified 2.5 million names of apparently fictional electors on the voters'
register.
The
opposition decided to boycott the referendum, giving Mr Condé an easy mandate.
In recent
days, he has argued that this was a constitutional overhaul that he had long
wished to carry out but felt that he could not prioritise during the early
years of his administration.
But pressed
over whether he has ambitions to be head of state for life, he has been
evasive.
Although Mr
Condé did not formally confirm that he would stand again, even early last year
his ambition to do so was already common talk in Conakry - and a source of
worry among other West African leaders, and European diplomats, fearing a
renewed bout of instability in a country with such a long history of
confrontational urban political violence.
There were
hopes that the president could be persuaded to opt for a graceful elder
statesman retirement. But his determination has been evident for many months.
This has
presented a tough dilemma for opponents, under few illusions about the public
profile, incumbent's spending power and state muscle that Mr Condé brings to
the race.
Moreover, in
previous contests some members of his camp have played the ethnic card,
stirring up the wariness of voters from Malinké and Soussou ethnic backgrounds
against Mr Diallo, a member of the Peul, or Fulani, Guinea's largest ethnic
group.
In such a
toxic climate, for months it seemed that the opposition, mainly gathered under
the banner of the National Front for the Defence of the Constitution (FNDC)
alliance, would simply opt to boycott a contest which they felt could never be
fair, despite serious efforts to clean up the electoral register, which has now
been approved by Ecowas.
But in early
September Mr Diallo broke with the FNDC consensus, announcing that he would in
fact run, thus facing Mr Condé for a third presidential race in succession.
He is not
the only challenger, but he is the heavyweight in the field.
He insists
he really has a chance of winning. But he faces huge obstacles.
Memories of
his stint as a economic reforming technocratic prime minister back in 2004-06
are fading.
And with
opposition opinion divided over whether or not to boycott the poll, he cannot
be sure of maximising its support, even in a final run-off.
His campaign
has faced obstruction and local harassment, particularly where it ventures into
strongholds of support for Mr Condé, such as Kankan, in the north-east.
But he seems
to have calculated this is a political gamble worth taking, perhaps in the hope
of mobilising urban youth voters to pull off a surprise victory, particularly
if a cleaned up electoral roll and the presence of international observers
limit the scope for manipulation.
Even so,
with an organised national machine and a high profile as head of state, Mr
Condé appears confident of a comfortable victory.
Five Things About Guinea:
·
Independence leader Sekou Touré famously told France in 1958:
"Guinea prefers poverty in freedom than riches in slavery"
·
"Black power" civil rights leader Stokely Carmichael
moved from the US to Guinea in 1968, with his then-wife Miriam Makeba, becoming
a life-long proponent of pan-Africanism
·
It has the world's biggest reserves of bauxite - the main source
of aluminium
·
Its Mount Nimba Strict Nature Reserve, a Unesco World Heritage
Site, on the borders with Ivory Coast and Liberia, is known for its viviparous
toad and chimpanzees that use stones as tools
·
Singer Mory Kanté, famous for the 1980s hit Yéké Yéké, came from
a well-known Guinean griot family.
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