Guinea: postponement of two elections raises many questions

An electoral poster in favor of the "yes" to the referendum in Conakry, February 24, 2020. Carole Valade / RFI

Text by: RFI Follow

Many uncertainties in Guinea on the organization of legislative and referendum on the draft new Constitution. The president, Alpha Condé, announced last Friday the postponement of the double ballot. A postponement raises many questions.

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With our correspondent in Conakry, Carol Valade

In Guinea , the ball is now in the court of the Ceni, the Electoral Commission which must, in collaboration with the Constitutional Court, propose a new date to the head of state. He will then reconvene the electoral body. And this is where the question of legal deadlines arises since for the referendum, the electorate must be convened fifteen days before the vote. But for the legislative elections, this deadline increases to 70 days. We are therefore moving towards a postponement certainly greater than the two weeks announced.

The objective of this postponement is above all to bring the African Union and the ECOWAS, the West African organization, back into the process. Conakry therefore awaits the imminent arrival of their teams. Their mission will be to verify that the CENI software makes it possible to erase duplicates, deceased persons, minors and to resolve "in accordance with the Electoral Code " the question of the two and a half million doubtful voters, raised by the Organization Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) to explain its withdrawal.

Major problem: the president of the CENI declared last week that he was well aware of the flaws in the file , but that he simply did not have the legal means to remove them. The second problem is the inclusive aspect of the vote demanded by international institutions. Since this postponement only concerns the political parties already in the running. President Alpha Condé made this clear. The opposition heavyweights who have already decided to boycott are kept out of the electoral game. Which makes say to the president of the UFDG, Cellou Dalein Diallo, that this postponement will not ease the tensions.

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  • Guinea
  • Alpha Condé

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