Conde confirmed Guinea President
GUINEA: Guinea’s Alpha Conde has been elected president, the
Supreme Court said Friday, confirming results in the country’s first
free vote since independence, which was marred by bloody ethnic clashes.
After an anxious two week wait under a state of emergency imposed in
the wake of violence after provisional results named Conde,72, the
winner, the Supreme Court validated his victory with 52.52 percent. “The
candidate of the RPG (Rally of the Guinean People), Alpha Conde... is
elected president of the Republic,” magistrate Mamadou Sylla, who
presides over the court’s constitutional chamber, told scores of
journalists.
Rival candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo, whose supporters took to the
streets two weeks ago as he claimed the vote was tainted by fraud, won
47.48 percent of votes.
In the early hours of Friday morning, all appeared calm in Conakry
after the Supreme Court announcement. Several hundred Conde supporters
celebrated outside his house, but the country’s new president did not
wish to speak to the press.
The Supreme Court rejected “unfounded” requests from Diallo to have
results from two regions in Upper Guinea,Siguiri and Kouroussa,
cancelled. He claimed the Malinke ethnic group aligned with his rival of
the same clan, carried out a violent campaign of “ethnic hatred” against
members of his Fulani ethnicity in the area in October.
Violence after the November 15 release of provisional results left at
least seven people dead and hundreds injured as security forces cracked
down on protests, to international condemnation of unnecessary
brutality. CONAKRY, Friday, AFP |