In Guinea, the party of President Alpha Condé won more than two thirds of the seats in the legislative elections on March 22, the electoral commission announced on Wednesday. The government had already proclaimed last week the victory of the "yes" to more than 90% in the referendum organized the same day on the draft new Constitution proposed by the Head of State, considered by the opposition as a ploy for stay in power.

The ruling Gathering of the People of Guinea (RPG) won 79 of the 114 seats in the National Assembly. Alpha Condé's party won 42 of the 76 seats on the national lists and 37 of the 38 constituencies, according to a method of ballot combining proportional and first-past-the-post voting.

With this large majority, President Alpha Condé will have a free hand to carry out his projects. He has not said if he will run for a third term in late 2020, but his opponents have no doubt.

Boycott

In the absence of the main opposition parties, including the Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDC) of former Prime Minister Cellou Dalein Diallo, who had decided to boycott the legislative elections and the referendum, the 35 remaining seats are distributed among 24 small parties.

The project lent to Alpha Condé to run for a third term at the end of 2020, at 82 and the new Constitution which should help him, according to the opposition, are at the heart of a political crisis that has left dozens dead since mid-October.

Opponents of the head of state rejected the announced result of the referendum and called for an investigation under the aegis of the United Nations into the violence attributed to the police. The United States, the European Union and France have questioned the credibility of the referendum and the legislative elections.

These results are announced while Guinea is under the state of emergency, banning gatherings of more than 20 people, with a curfew, to respond to the epidemic of coronavirus.

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