Guinean President Alpha Condé will run for a third term in the poll scheduled for October 18, his party, the Rassemblement du peuple de Guinée (RPG), said on Monday, as a wave of protest against the prospect of a new candidacy has killed dozens of people in the country.

The party in power had "requested" him at the beginning of August to represent himself.

At 82 years old, Alpha Condé, elected in 2010 and re-elected in 2015, had said "take note", without formally committing, but asking his training and his allies to forge a program centered on women, young people and the poorest.

"If you want me to accept your proposal, you must commit to the RPG returning to what it was, a party that leaves no one behind," he told delegates from his party.

The majority parties have submitted to the president a "pact proposal" for the implementation of this program, said the RPG in a statement read in the evening on national television RTG.

"We have the immense privilege and the happiness to inform the Guinean population that it has acceded to our request. President Alpha Condé will be our candidate for the presidential election of October 18, 2020," said this press release read by the Director-General of RTG.

"Counters to zero"

The Guinean Constitution limits the number of presidential terms to two, but the adoption at the beginning of the year of a new fundamental law, which maintains this limitation, during a referendum boycotted by the opposition, allows Alpha Condé to postpone the counters at zero, his supporters had been asserting for months.

The President has repeatedly criticized this limitation, calling it unfair.

We "had invited the Head of State to run for a new term as authorized by the new Constitution," the RPG unambiguously affirmed Monday in its press release.

Launched in October 2019 by the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), made up of the main opposition parties and civil society organizations, the mobilization against a possible third term of Alpha Condé, several times repressed, killed dozens of protesters.

Alpha Condé, a former historical opponent, in 2010 became the first democratically elected president after decades of authoritarian regimes in this former French colony in West Africa, where more than half of the population lives in poverty despite the wealth. from his basement.

Alpha Condé has been the subject of numerous criticisms from a human rights association who accuse him of the violence by the police during the demonstrations, which have killed some 200 people since he came to power, according to the opposition.

A group of Guinean opponents also recently filed a complaint in France against Alpha Condé and several of his relatives for corruption, influence peddling and money laundering.

With AFP

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