Losing Guinea candidates cry foul; Gen. Konaté threatens to resign

Reposted with permission from Friends of Guinea blog

Conduct of the first round of presidential elections were generally praised by the international community, including ECOWAS and the United States.

However, the Carter Center did cite concerns, including: Confusion about several important aspects of voting and counting procedures, delay in allocation of polling stations, and late delivery of essential voting materials negatively affected the quality of polling.

The top two finishers will contest a run off: former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo and longtime opposition leader Alpha Condé. The second round was originally scheduled for July 18 but reports have suggested that it will not take place on that date, since the Constitutional Court will not rule on the validity of the first round results until July 13.

The interim government banned public demonstrations following the first round and broke up with tear gas a march held in defiance of the ban.

Several opposition candidates complained about electoral irregularities, most vehemently the UFR's candidate Sidya Touré. Touré, another former prime minister, finished third in the first round, about 5 percentage points behind Condé.

Touré attacked the president of the transition Gen. Sékouba Konaté as well as the French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner.

The acting head of state Gen. Konaté responded angrily to the 'offensive' questioning of his neutrality and set off a mini-crisis when he threatened to resign. However, he appears to have been dissuaded from this course of action by Senegal's leader Abdoulaye Wade and African Union chief Jean Ping.

Sékouba Konaté: Guinea's ATT?

A recent inquirer asked me what I thought about the new Guinean head of state Gen. Sékouba Konaté. Gen. Konaté recently took power after previous junta leader Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara, recovering from an assassination attempt, handed it over. The somewhat unstable Dadis and his equally fanatical cabal were widely seen as an obstacle to democracy and stability in Guinea, whereas Konaté is seen as more moderate. Konaté quickly appointed a civilian prime minister (long-time opposition figure Jean-Marie Doré) as well as a key labor leader to head a body that will manage the transition.

As always, it's hard to tell what any leader's real intentions are. I'm not sure whether the general is a democrat per se. But my sense is that Konaté sees which way the wind is blowing and recognizes that the military has lost all credibility, both internally and externally, after the Sept. 28 massacre and cover up. The outraged reaction to the massacre was much broader and more powerful than anyone (including myself... I'm happy to have been wrong) ever expected. I think Konate realizes that the army's time is up and they need to get out of the way.

I think the bigger question is whether Konaté has enough control over the divided army to actually allow this democratic transition to take place and for the civilians to rule without intimidation. It's clear there have been fanatics loyal to Dadis Camara who don't want to give up power but it's not clear whether they will stand aside without causing chaos or worse.

In 1991 in neighboring Mali, military dictator Gen. Moussa Traoré's forces massacred hundreds of pro-democracy protesters in the capital Bamako. Revulsion to the bloodshed was so widespread that Traoré was overthrown and replaced by Gen. Amadou Toumani Touré (known colloquially as ATT). ATT convened a national conference which wrote a new constitution and organized democratic elections, to whose winners he handed over power. ATT was so widely revered for his role in Mali's democratic transition that he was later elected to the chief executive and has been civilian president since 2002. Will Gen. Konaté be Guinea's ATT? Only time will tell.

Power sharing accord reportedly to be signed but Guinea remains tense and military split

Republished with permission from Friends of Guinea's blog


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The head of Guinea's military junta Capt. Moussa Dadis Camara was flown from Morocco to Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou. Dadis had spent a month in hospital in the North African country after being wounded in an assassination attempt. Reports indicate that Dadis thought he was being flown directly to Conakry and was furious when he realized otherwise. Supporters of the junta leader have demanded he be returned to Guinea.

The International Criminal Court is investigating Dadis' alleged role in the September 28, 2009 massacres in Conakry; the report of a UN inquiry into the killings is available here.

Morocco is not a part of the ICC while Burkina Faso is. Additional, Burkina Faso's leader Blaise Compaore is mediating in the Guinean crisis on behalf of the West African regional grouping ECOWAS. Speculation is that these reasons played a role in Morocco's decision to send Dadis to Ouagadougou.

In the absence of Capt. Dadis, Guinea's acting leader has been the more moderate defense minister Gen. Sekouba Konate. Konate threatened to resign if Dadis did not compromise on terms to a transition to civilian rule.


Splits in the army remain, with supporters of Dadis wanting the charismatic captain to remain in power indefinitely while Gen. Konate and others want to return civilian constitutional order as quickly as possible. A spokesman for Konate said, "The general has made it very clear that he is not interested in staying in power. He made it very clear that he is there to restore discipline within the army and create conditions for a transition.

Meanwhile, Guinea's southern neighbors are worried about the effects of any civil strife on their country. A member of Sierra Leone's parliament warned that if the Republic of Guinea should explode, Sierra Leone would be consumed in less than a week; and if the situation in Guinea is not treated seriously, Sierra Leone's survival and livelihood as a state would be affected.

Today, Radio France Internationale reports that an accord was signed in Burkina Faso, between Dadis and Konate, whereby Dadis would remain in 'convalescence' and elections would be scheduled in six months. The AP has this as well. The BBC added that the accord stated that Dadis would support the transition to civilian rule.

Alliance Guinea reported that Dadis had accepted the principle of a prime minister from the opposition and that Saratou Sara Diallo and long time opposition figure Jean-Marie Dore were the two names it had proposed.

Update: al-Jazeera adds that the accord bans members of the junta as well as any active military serviceman from standing in the elections.