Guinean President Alpha Conde has won re-election in the first round of presidential polls, according to provisional results released on Friday that his main rival refused to recognize, labeling the poll “illegal.”
Conde’s challengers have said that an election on Sunday last week was tainted by widespread fraud and mismanagement and have urged supporters to take to the streets, raising the specter of unrest in the days to come.
The west African state has a history of post-election violence, prompting outsiders to call on all parties to pursue their grievances through the courts rather than protests.
Photo: AFP
Conde’s main rival, Cellou Dalein Diallo, dismissed the result as an “electoral farce,” saying “we cannot recognize such a victory.”
Results published by the Independent National Electoral Commission from areas representing more than 90 percent of Guinea’s voters showed Conde winning an outright majority with nearly 2.2 million ballots.
Turnout was put at about 66 percent of the 6 million voters.
One suburb of the capital Conakry and the overseas votes cast by Guineans living in New York were yet to be counted.
Conde’s seven challengers have said the vote — the second democratic presidential poll since Guinea gained independence from France in 1958 — was marred by election-rigging and demanded a rerun.
Conde, 77, had gone into the campaign promising to deliver a “KO blow” to his opponents by winning victory in the first round, avoiding a run-off against his closest rival.
Diallo refused to recognize the result.
“When the president [of the electoral commission] decides that anyone holding an electoral card can vote, even without an envelope — in violation of the electoral code — it shows the illegal way in which the election has taken place,” he said.
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