GUINEA: Voting Ends Without Incident, But Opposition Cries Foul

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Dec 15 1998 (IPS) - Despite the opposition’s calls for the postponement of presidential and legislative polls, voting went ahead Monday in the capital Conakry and in other towns and villages in the interior.

According to officials in the Ministry of Interior, the elections took place in a peaceful, free and fair atmosphere. Throughout the day, roadblocks manned by rifle-wielding soldiers, the police and the territorial gendarmerie, were mounted in the capital and the metropolitan towns.

In Conakry, the capital city, according to journalists covering the polls, all the commercial and administrative businesses in the capital came to a halt.

“The markets and shops were closed for fear of public looting by militants of rival parties and motorists completely avoided the streets. So Conakry was a dead city, so to speak,” said Mariama Diallo, a school teacher in Conakry.

Guinea’s land and seaports also are closed and the authorities say they will reopen on Dec. 20.

The government of the incumbent, General Lansana Conte, refused the opposition’s demands to delay the polls until January 1999, and for the creation of an Independent Electoral Commission to oversee the polls. It instead gave the task to the Interior Ministry, traditional or paramount chiefs and religious leaders.

President Conte, however, did allow 30 foreign monitors to watch the election process.

Before Guineans went to the polls, the Co-ordination of the Democratic Coalition (CODEM), a coalition of five major opposition political parties and more than 20 political associations, questioned the distribution of the voters’ cards, and accused General Conte’s Unity and Progress Party (PUP) of having “a hidden agenda aimed at cheating at the elections”.

A leading presidential aspirant, Alpha Conde of the Rally of the Guinean People (RPG) Party, abandoned the campaign trail 24 hours before the polling day to protest against what he referred to as the unfair distribution of voter cards.

“Only a third of the voter cards were distributed by the government and the bulk went to supporters of General Conte’s PUP,” Conde claimed.

While political leaders and the electorate wait for the counting of the votes to begin, another presidential aspirant, Ba Mamadou of the Union of the New Republic (UNR), has already cried foul.

Opposition parties were not represented at the hundreds of polling stations throughout the country, Mamadou said Tuesday in an interview with the foreign media.

“General Conte knew that if our supporters were deployed at the polling stations, it would be impossible to cheat at the polls, so he did not allow this to happen,” Mamadou added.

Mamadou is a former World Bank official who lost the 1993 presidential election to General Conte. He predicted that Conte would not receive 30 percent of the total votes cast, thus forcing a re-run. Any candidate who receives over 50 percent of the votes cast in the polls will be declared the winner.

Mamadou said the opposition is bound to win this time, and added that any attempt at cheating by the incumbent will be seriously resisted.

“If we detect any cheating by Conte, we will fight back by any means under the law and make it difficult to govern the country,” Mamadou disclosed.

The run-up to the polls was marred by spates of violence. In the southern city of Farannah alone, a total of four opposition supporters were reported killed in clashes with the state security.

There have been no comments from the foreign election monitors, but militants of the opposition have threatened to go on the rampage if General Conte is declared the winner.

Conte came to power in 1984, following a bitter power struggle in the military high command after the death of Guinean dictator Ahmed Sekou Toure.

He has since ruled the West African state of 10 million people with an iron fist. Opposition activities are often crushed by pro-government forces and the press is largely controlled by the ruling administration.

Unconfirmed estimates put the number of political prisoners at over 100, and calls by human rights groups for their release before the elections, as a conciliatory gesture, were not heeded by the government.

Conte has, however, managed to keep the economy thriving through an economic reform programme backed by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and he has kept the country from falling into a brutal and destructive civil war like neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia.

These achievements have endeared him to the ordinary people who have electricity, good roads and a communications network.