Guinea elections: Enraged party to dispute results in court


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Numerous Sydia Touré supporters gathered Monday in the Guinean capital, Conakry, to protest alleged electoral fraud in the June 27 presidential elections. The Guinean government, having banned demonstrations, immediately dispatched security forces to disperse the demonstrators.

The president of the Union des forces républicaines (UFR), Sydia Touré came in third in the first round of the presidential elections with 15.60 percent. However, he claims that the second-placed Alpha Condé “stuffed the ballots,” and usurped his position.

Three thousand demonstrators, mostly women, marched through the streets of Conakry, Monday, protesting the results of the first round of the presidential election.

Dressed in red, the crowd gathered in front of the Independent Electoral Commission and the Supreme Court chanting “Sidya was cheated” and “We want Sydia and Cellou (Dalein Diallo) in the second round,” before being dispersed with tear gas by the security forces.

The Prime Minister, as a warning to supporters of the unsuccessful first-round candidate Sydia Touré, had announced the previous day on national television, “I will not accept that public order be disturbed by people contesting issues without proof and on which the Supreme Court is yet to render its verdict.”

Election Fraud

But Jean Marie Doré’s intention to avert the protest march was not to be. Protesters gathered in their numbers to support Sydia Toure, President of l’Union des forces républicaines (UFR), who after taking third place in the 27 June election, with 15.60% of the votes, claimed that Alpha Conde, who came second with 20.67% of the first round votes, had stolen his way into the second round election.

Sydia Toure’s goal is to confront Cellou Dalein Diallo of the Union des forces démocratiques de Guinée (UFDG), who came first with 39.72% of the votes, in the second round scheduled for July 18.

“Results from several polling stations and constituencies were manipulated in favor of Alpha Condé’s party (Rassemblement du peuple de Guinée),” Sydia Toure protests in a statement. The candidate accuses the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) of orchestrating the results to avoid causing tensions within the country’s two largest ethnic groupings, the Fulani and Malinke.

Sydia Toure has decided to engage the Supreme Court and demand the cancellation of some 280,000 votes that were allocated to Alpha Conde. In an interview with Jeune Afrique, Sydia Touré accuses Alpha Condé of having “stuffed ballot boxes” in the predominant Diakanté region of Lower Guinea, his party’s stronghold.

Sydia Toure says he will file a law suit against the CENI at the Supreme Court after which the legal body will have three days to rule on the validity of the first round.

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