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Guinea: The short period of calm before the storms
By African Bulletin on September 14, 2010
At the approach of the second tour of the Guinean presidential elections of September 19th,
the head of Guinea’s election commission and a senior aide have been sentenced to a year in jail for fraud during June’s presidential vote. The verdicts are likely to increase tensions ahead of the 19 September run-off. The veteran opposition leader, Alpha Condé, has blamed the CNEI for having removed statements at the conclusion of the first tour of the ballot, while the CENI planning director is accusing the RPG, through Mr. Alpha Condé, of using his connections inside the army and inside the interim government to try to manipulate the outcome of the vote. For Cellou Dalein Diallo’s Party, the UFDG, this decision of justice «wants to provoke the implosion of CENI and consequently postpone the electoral process, so that the second tour will not take place on September 19th “.
The vote has been seen as the first democratic election in the mineral-rich West African state since independence, but not for so long. Today some fear that these events could raise again ethnic tensions in Guinea as the two candidates come from the country’s two largest communities. Mr. Diallo is a “Peul” and Mr. Condé a “Malinke”. By the way, the first skirmishes took place this week end, causing three deaths and fifty injured, and forced the president of the Republic of Guinea, Sekouba Konaté, to cancel his visit in Lebanon, because of the tension reigning in Conakry.