Guinea held a presidential election Sunday with victory all but assured for Mamady Doumbouya, a general who led the junta that seized power in the west African country four years ago.By running, the strongman is reneging on a pledge not to stand for office and to hand the country back to civilian rule by the end of 2024.Instead, he has sought to silence dissent. All the main opposition leaders have been barred from standing in Sunday’s election.Some 6.8 million people are eligible to choose between the nine approved candidates, including 41-year-old Doumbouya, who is running as an independent. Polling closes at 1800 GMT.”I am here to fulfill a civic duty,” Colle Camara, a 45-year-old teacher, told AFP, as he cast his ballot in what he hoped would be a “peaceful” election. A steady stream of voters arrived as soon as polling stations opened in the capital.A large security presence, including armored vehicles, patrolled the streets, AFP journalists observed. Security forces said they “neutralized” members of an armed group with “subversive intentions threatening national security” early Saturday in the Conakry suburbs.UN human rights chief Volker Turk said Friday the campaign had been “marked by intimidation of opposition actors, apparently politically-motivated enforced disappearances, and constraints on media freedom”.Guinea’s opposition called for a boycott of the vote, in a country rich in minerals but where 52 percent of the population lives in poverty, according to World Bank figures.Guinea experienced a rare democratic transition with the 2010 election of Alpha Conde, the country’s first freely elected president. Doumbouya overthrew him in September 2021.Under Doumbouya, Guinea effectively “reverted to what it has essentially known since independence in 1958: authoritarian regimes, whether civilian or military”, Gilles Yabi, founder of the west African think tank Wathi, told AFP.- Busy election year -Doumbouya looks set to win in the first round of voting, against eight relatively unknown remaining rivals. Provisional results could be announced within two days, according to election chief Djenabou Toure.The vote, which falls on the same day as elections in Central African Republic, caps a busy electoral year in Africa — marked by authoritarianism and oppression, as well as wins for several longstanding leaders, including in Cameroon and Ivory Coast where the main rivals were also barred.Guinea approved a new constitution in a September referendum, which the opposition called on voters to boycott.The new document allowed junta members including Doumbouya to stand for election and lengthened presidential terms from five to seven years, renewable once.Unlike its neighbours Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which are also under military rule, Guinea has maintained good relations with former colonial master France and other international partners.Opposition leader and former Guinean prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo has condemned the vote as “an electoral charade” aimed at giving legitimacy to “the planned confiscation of power”.Diallo is one of three opposition leaders barred from standing in the vote by the new constitution.Diallo is excluded because he lives in exile and his primary residence is not in Guinea. Former president Conde and ex-prime minister Sidya Toure, who also live in exile, are over the maximim age limit of 80.- Economic record – In a social media video, Doumbouya touted his infrastructure achievements, promised to fight corruption and expressed his ambition to “make Guinea an emerging country”.He highlighted the start of operations at Simandou, one of the world’s biggest iron ore mines. Yabi said that while Guineans are enthusiastic about such projects, it is not clear what “economic governance will look like” after the election.
