“Guinea coup leader Mamady Doumbouya has been elected president, according to provisional results, following the country’s first election since a military takeover in 2021. The results announced on Tuesday showed Doumbouya winning 86.72 percent of the vote, held on December 28.”
The election was completely fraudulent. Doumboya isn’t popular, and under his inept rule, the country’s main oil depot blew up, resulting in economic hardship for many. A catastrophic explosion and fire occurred at Guinea’s main oil depot in December 2023, killing at least 13 people, injuring nearly 200, causing widespread destruction, and disrupting fuel supplies in Guinea, with the blast shaking Guinea’s capital city and forcing evacuations due to the massive blaze. The explosion led to widespread school and business closures.
Dictator Doumboya also isn’t a member of Guinea’s largest ethnic group, the Fulani. So there is no reason to think that a majority of voters held their noses and voted for him out of ethnic solidarity.
As Al Jazeera explains, this fraudulent election was the end
of a transition process that began four years ago after Doumbouya ousted President Alpha Conde, who had been in office since 2010.
The coup leader has since clamped down on opposition and dissent…leaving him with no major opponents among the eight other candidates who were in the race.
Both Conde and longtime opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo live in exile.
Doumboya has banned demonstrations, restricted the press, and restricted political activity by the opposition.
The election campaign was “severely restricted, marked by intimidation of opposition actors, apparently politically motivated enforced disappearances, and constraints on media freedom”, the United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, said.
On December 28, opposition candidate Faya Lansana Millimono said the election was tainted by “systematic fraudulent practices” and that observers were prevented from monitoring both voting and ballot counting.
African elections are often fraudulent, even in those African nations that regularly hold elections and allow opposition parties to exist.
In October, the unpopular president of Tanzania was reelected with 97% of the vote in a fraudulent election. She got more than twice as many votes as her more popular predecessor did in his reelection campaign, showing her reelection was obviously a fraud. When Tanzanians protested the fraud, at least 1,000 of them were killed.
Tanzania is better run than Guinea, and is less likely to steal your investment if you are a foreign investor. Guinea scores lower on economic freedom rankings than Tanzania, although Guinea is a bit richer, due to having more natural resources per capita than Tanzania. Tanzanians have longer lifespans than people in Guinea on average.
Guinea has had few fair elections in its history. The civilian predecessor of Guinea’s dictator — Alpha Conde — was initially elected in a fair election, but used fraud to win subsequent legislative elections (such as having children cast ballots in pro-government areas), and responded to protests over the fraud by using live ammunition against protesters. His reelection may have been the result of fraud.
