Conde leads in Guinea poll
CONAKRY - Guinea’s octogenarian president, Alpha Conde, is ahead in four electoral districts in the October 18 presidential election, preliminary results announced by the electoral commission showed on Tuesday.
But the opposition has denounced what it called a large-scale fraud aimed at preventing it from winning Sunday’s presidential election.
The campaign manager for the main opposition challenger, Cellou Dalein Diallo, said the administration of President Condé was doing everything possible to modify the results in his favour.
At least three people have died since Diallo claimed victory.
Final official results have not yet been released. African Union monitors say the vote was conducted properly.
In Ivory Coast, two people were hurt on Tuesday in clashes involving opposition- aligned students from the powerful Fesci union, an AFP journalist said, as violence persists with two weeks to go before a contentious presidential election.
Violence in the lead-up to the presidential vote has stirred raw memories of post-electoral clashes that killed 3, 000 in 2010-11, when then-President Laurent Gbagbo refused to accept his defeat to challenger Alassane Ouattara.
“It’s true that we’re seeing
some violence from one direction or another. But it’s also a bad stereotype to try and show these few violent incidents as being widespread at the national level,” government spokesperson Sidi Tiemoko Toure said Tuesday, accusing the opposition of being behind the clashes.
The regional Economic Community of West African States on Monday urged opposition parties to “seriously reconsider their decision to boycott the election, and their call on their supporters to engage in civil disobedience.”
The opposition has allowed doubts to swirl over whether it will boycott the vote, urging supporters to boycott the electoral process and campaigning, while stopping short of withdrawing its three candidacies.
Calls for a boycott came after Ouattara, who has governed for two terms, said he would stand again in defiance of a constitutional limit, saying that a 2016 reform has reset the counter. – REUTERS/BBC/AFP.