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Guinea: Conakry under high tension

Thick black smoke rises towards the sky at the Sonfonia roundabout, 25 kilometers north of central Conakry. “It’s not going”, indicate bikers and motorists who still venture in this direction. The drivers do so all the more quickly as gunshots suddenly resound nearby. At the beginning of the afternoon, several deaths were announced, in clashes between groups of young people and the Defense and Security Forces (FDS). Among them, Boubacar Baldé, coordinator at Sonfonia Gare of the National Front for the Defense of the Constitution (FNDC), a movement created in April 2019 to oppose a 3e term of outgoing president Alpha Condé. He was “shot dead” by the SDF, the movement confirmed.

Located on the Le Prince road which crosses the Guinean capital, Sonfonia is one of the suburbs said to be close to the opposition. From 8 a.m. on Wednesday morning, groups of young people paralyzed traffic with tire dams that they set on fire. The same goes for Cosa, Bembeto, and other districts located along this expressway also known as the “axis”. These incidents occur the day after the publication by the Independent National Electoral Commission (Ceni) of provisional results of the presidential election of October 18 in four constituencies out of 38.

These are three communes of Conakry (Kaloum, Matoto, Matam) and the city of Boffa, 150 kilometers north of Conakry. The outgoing president and candidate for a 3e Alpha Condé mandate is given in the lead in these four constituencies. However, part of these protest districts belong to the municipality of Matoto. As of Monday, they had invested the Le Pince road by the thousands to celebrate the victory claimed at a press conference by the opponent and main opponent of Alpha Condé, Cellou Dalein Diallo. But the celebrations were cut short. Clashes between groups of young people and the Defense and Security Forces caused the death of four people in the late afternoon. Among them, three students aged 13, 14 and 18. Their families confirmed to Point Afrique that they had been shot dead by the SDF.

The authorities have not yet reacted. As the violence continued in the capital on Wednesday afternoon, outgoing President Alpha Condé tweeted: “I reiterate my call, to all, for calm and serenity, while awaiting the outcome of the electoral process underway in our country. Of course there will be a winner, but that does not mean that democracy will be threatened or that social peace becomes impossible. “On his Facebook page, he also added:” If the victory is mine, I remain open to dialogue and available to work with all Guineans “, pleading for a true” national union “.

His political opponent Cellou Dalein Diallo, he was still braced on his position on Tuesday. “Alpha Condé is doing everything to change the results of the ballot box in its favor. Territorial administrators, defense and security forces, ministers and senior officials of the central administration and certain magistrates are all mobilized to carry out this large-scale fraud ”, mentions a press release from his party, the Union of Democratic Forces. from Guinea.

Ignoring the official process of counting the results of the ballot by the centralization commissions, Cellou Dalein Diallo announced his victory in the first round on Monday, on the basis of a count of the votes conducted by the UFDG electoral commission. The opposition party claims to have collected 70% of the minutes of the 14,938 polling stations in the country and that the result is “irreversible”.

 

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