POLITICS-GUINEA: Weak Opposition Stands Little Chance at Polls

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Mar 6 1998 (IPS) - With barely nine months to go before Guinea’s presidential elections, opposition politicians and human rights groups have accused the government of Gen. Lansana Conte of creating an environment not conducive to free and fair polls.

“I don’t think that Conte is sincere about holding free and fair elections, because he knows for sure that the Guinean people don’t want him any more,” said Ba Mamadou, a presidential aspirant of the Union of the New Republic (UNR) Party.

Mamadou, who doubles as chairman of the opposition coalition, Coordination of the Democratic Opposition (CODEM), said this week in Conakry that Conte still refuses to set up an independent electoral commission to conduct the elections.

CODEM includes the UNR, the Guinean Peoples Rally (RPG), and more than 10 smaller parties and 20 political associations.

“We have no doubt that with an independent electoral commission, Conte’s PUP (Unity and Progress Party) will never get a mandate from the people,” said Siradiou Diallo, who hopes to run for president on the Party for Renewal and Progress (PRP) ticket.

Mamadou, a veteran politician, also cited the proposed new dual citizenship law as another ploy by Gen. Conte to eliminate opponents from the presidential race.

According to the law, any person holding dual citizenship is automatically disqualified from contesting the presidency. A large majority of the leading opposition figures in Guinea hold Guinean and French citizenship.

“If Lansana Conte insists on the so-called dual citizenship law, we will fight him in court, because we know he hails from Guinea Bissau,” says Sallieu Sowe, a militant of the Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG).

Alpha Bangoura, a human rights activist based in Guinea’s capital of Conakry, says the dual citizenship law violates the rights of other presidential hopefuls in the West African nation.

“The proposed law is a violation of the constitutional rights of Guineans who want to run against the incumbent,” Bangoura said.

The Bill is yet to be presented to the National Assembly, which is dominated by the ruling Unity and Progress Party (PUP). Political observers predict that Conte will have no trouble in getting the citizenship law through the Assembly.

Guinea’s opposition however, is divided along ethnic lines, which further weakens the chances of Gen. Conte being removed from power. Conte is a member of the minority Sisu, which are 15 percent of Guinea’s more than 5.6 million people.

Conte became president of Guinea in 1984 following the sudden death of Sekou Toure in the same year. Before a successor could be chosen to Toure, the army staged a coup which brought Conte to power.

“I think our democracy is in trouble, because political leaders rely so much on the ethnic constituencies to gain entry into political offices,” said political analyst Pascal Cisse.

Gen Conte has mobilised a lot of support among the population, because of his development programme which has improved electricity, transport and water supplies throughout the country.

According to political analysts in Conakry, it will be these gains, and the opposition’s weakness, that will return Conte, a soldier-turned-politician, to power.