Guinean opposition supporters clash with police

CONAKRY - Young supporters of Guinean opponent Cellou Dalien Diallo, who has declared himself the winner of the presidential election, clashed with police on Wednesday in the Wanindara district of the country’s capital Conakry.

African election monitors said Tuesday that Guinea’s weekend election was conducted properly, but the political opposition to incumbent Alpha Conde, which has already claimed victory, dismissed it as fraudulent.

Preliminary results for four of the country’s 38 voting districts released by electoral commission chief Kabinet Cisse late on Tuesday showed a strong lead for Conde over his main challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo, who had claimed victory Monday. In three of the four districts, Conde secured more than the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff vote, although an electoral commission official told AFP it was “impossible to extrapolate” to the final national result, expected later this week.

“Alpha Conde is doing everything possible to change ballot-box results in his favour” Diallo’s campaign director Fode Oussou Fofana had earlier told reporters in the capital Conakry.

The opposition campaign has been setting the stage for an election dispute, with Fofana accusing the government of “large-scale fraud” in counting ballots from the hotly contested October 18 poll. Conde, 82, is seeking a controversial third presidential term, a move that has triggered months of deadly unrest in the West African nation.

Augustin Matata Ponyo, the African Union’s head of mission in Guinea, said the ballot took place “in transparency” while the head of the West African ECOWAS monitoring mission said the vote was lawful.

Celebrations in Conakry of Diallo’s self-proclaimed victory quickly descended into violent clashes with security forces, in which several youngsters were shot dead, opposition officials said.

Meanwhile in a seeming response to Diallo’s selfproclaimed win, security forces dressed in riot gear surrounded his house in the capital. He tweeted that he was trapped inside. – AFRICANEWS.