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Voters in Guinea have cast their votes in a high-stakes presidential election that follows months of bloody unrest.
Nearly 5.5 million people were eligible to vote Sunday at approximately 15,000 polling stations. Results are not expected for several days.
Twelve candidates are competing for the highest office, but only the incumbent, Alpha Conde, and Cellou Dalein Diallo, the leader of the main opposition party, Union of Democratic Forces of Guinea (UFDG), are said to stand a chance of victory.
Conde, 82, is seeking a controversial third term after passing a renewed constitution earlier this year that critics denounced as a plot to circumvent a two-term presidential limit.
The new constitution was overwhelmingly supported by voters in a March 22 referendum that was boycotted by the opposition. The result means that Conde could now remain president of the country for 12 more years. Massive demonstrations against the proposed changes were met with harsh repression by the security forces, which left dozens dead.
There have been fears that the recent tensions have taken on an ethnic dimension, with Conde accused of exploiting divisions during the campaign, a charge he denies. Guinea’s politics are mainly based on ethnic lines: the president’s base is mainly from the Malinke and Diallo ethnic community of the Fulani people.
Last week, the United Nations urged candidates to curb ethnically charged hate speech, warning that the situation is “extremely dangerous” and can lead to violence.
On Sunday, police were present in the capital Conakry following clashes between rival supporters in recent days, but the vote appeared quiet.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Conakry, Patrice Vahard, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, cited inclusion, hate speech and electoral violence as the main concerns in the lead-up to the vote. .
“Today was relatively uneventful,” Vahard said, adding, however, that “the period from the moment the polling stations get closer to the announcement of the final result by the constitutional court is going to be extremely critical.”
“It will be essential to closely monitor what happens in the next 72 hours,” he said.
Mohamed Fode Camara, an employee of the Ministry of Social Affairs, said he was “dreading the day the results will be announced.”
“God will save us, inshallah,” he told AFP news agency, adding that Guineans “want peace, not struggle.”
Voting in progress
Earlier, Security Minister Albert Damantang Camara told AFP that there had been “no major incidents”, although his ministry said “hooligans” had attacked security forces in the capital.
At a press conference, Diallo, 68, urged his followers to “show restraint.”
“I have no doubts about the outcome of the elections, so I do not want violence to interrupt the vote and jeopardize my victory,” he said, adding that he thought that Conde, however, could “cheat.”
For his part, Conde, who has been in power since 2010, said after voting in an elementary school in Conakry: “Guinea cannot develop if there is no peace, security and unity. We don’t want violence.
“Those who want to challenge the results must do so within a legal framework, with recourse to the Constitutional Court,” he added, dressed in white and flanked by bodyguards.
Almost 5.5 million registered voters can cast their vote in approximately 15,000 polling stations. [Papa Seck/EPA]
Meanwhile, several people, including one of the candidates, said they had been turned away from polling stations due to problems with their voting cards.
Aspiring President Makale Camara, a former foreign minister, said that she herself had not received any voting cards and therefore had not been able to vote.
“That is totally unacceptable because there are people who ended up with three or four cards,” he told the Reuters news agency. “It is a sacred disaster that they have organized there. If there can be ‘fictitious’ citizens, a candidate cannot be fictitious. “
In response to Reuters’ question about possible voting irregularities, a spokesman for the electoral commission said: “Only cards distributed during the last 30 days are valid.”
Conde has beaten Diallo twice before, in 2010 and 2015, and political analysts predict he will win another five-year term.
During a heated campaign, Conde, who described the constitutional reform that allowed him to run again as fair and democratic, said he needed more time to finish major mining and infrastructure projects.
Diallo, who was at the forefront of the protests against Conde’s third term, told supporters that he wanted to turn the page on “10 years of lies” and criticized police repression, corruption, youth unemployment and poverty.
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