The two rivals battling to become Guinea’s president scheduled talks on Monday to calm tensions after deadly clashes between their supporters prompted a ban on campaigning ahead of next week’s run-off.
At least one person died and about 50 were hurt when stone-throwing backers of former prime minister Cellou Dalein Diallo and veteran opposition figure Alpha Conde clashed on Sunday in Hamdallaye, a suburb of the capital, Conakry.
The gangs also targeted vehicles in the area, and the violence ended only after police and paramilitary gendarmes moved in.
Supporters of Diallo’s Union of Democratic Forces in Guinea (UDFG) and Conde’s Rally for the People of Guinea (RPG) party had also clashed on Saturday in three separate districts of Conakry before security forces intervened.
The electoral campaign was “provisionally suspended pending a meeting on Monday between the government and the two candidates who have already given their agreement for this meeting”, the government said in a statement.
The statement, which followed an emergency Cabinet meeting chaired by interim prime minister Jean-Marie Dore, added that anyone who violated the ban by holding demonstrations would be brought before the courts.
“First of all, we need to calm things down. Neither of the two candidates has any interest in seeing the situation degenerate further,” former foreign minister François Lonseny told Agence France-Presse on Monday from Dakar ahead of the talks.
Diallo and Conde are due to face off in a presidential run-off on September 19. Diallo won 43,69% in the June first round vote and Conde took 18,25%.
The June vote was Guinea’s first democratic poll since independence from France in 1958. The impoverished West African state has known decades of autocratic or military rule, and is currently led by a junta headed by General Sekouba Konate.
Most parties claimed irregularities and fraud in the first round and the Supreme Court threw out the votes of two districts of Conakry and three cities.
Fraud
The RPG blamed Diallo’s party for provoking Saturday’s clashes, which it said left 20 people injured, six in serious condition. Conde’s home was also targeted during the violence, a party spokesperson said.
Government spokesperson Aboubacar Sylla later said the clashes over the course of the weekend left one person dead and 50 injured.
The violence followed Friday’s announcement that the head of the election commission and a top aide had been convicted of fraud.
Neither Ben Sekou Sylla nor his head of planning, Boubacar Diallo, was present at the trial and their lawyers said they would be appealing.
Conde’s RPG party has accused Sylla and Diallo of having manipulated the first-round voting records, and an aide to Conde has called for the election commission leadership to be changed.
The violence appeared to further undermine an agreement that the rival parties signed in Ouagadougou on September 3, in the presence of mediator President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso.
In the six-page “protocol of understanding for a peaceful election in Guinea”, Conde and Diallo undertook to “lead a peaceful political campaign … in order to preserve the cohesion and unity of the country”.
They also undertook to ensure their supporters accepted the election result. — AFP