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Anxiety as Guineans wait for polls outcome
By John Eche
There is growing anxiety across West Africa as Guineans wait for the outcome of the presidential polls that took place at the weekend, The Difference checks have revealed.
As vote counting continues, polity watchers in the country and across the sub-region are waiting to see what the final results would amount to and whether the 82-year-old President Alpha Conde who is seeking a controversial third term, would be returned elected.
This is more so when there have been months of political unrest in the French-speaking West African nation that has led to dozens of people being killed during security crackdowns on mass anti-Conde protests.
The concern is that if Conde is declared elected ahead of the main opposition rival, Cellou Dalein Diallo, the opposition may not endorse that outcome and the streets also may be difficult to contain.
Even more damning is the fact that the opposition believes that the third term bid is a step towards a life-time presidency plot by Conde.
“Alpha Conde cannot abandon his desire to grant himself a presidency for life,” Diallo said on Sunday
There are already complaints of ballot-box stuffing and obstruction of observers at polling stations but Prime Minister Ibrahima Kassory Fofana says that though there have been “small incidents here and there,” all hell has not broken loose.
According to Guinea’s electoral laws, a second-round runoff vote nay be scheduled for November 24, if no clear winner emerges in the current contest.
The current election would be the third time when Diallo and Conde will be facing off after previous runs in 2010 and 2015.
Similar concern over electoral shenanigans in Mali had led to the ouster of the Ibrahim Keita administration in Mali earlier in the year.
President Alpha Conde of Guinea
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