Guinea presidential election polls open; millions to vote

Guinea’s president faces an electoral rematch Sunday as ethnic clashes that marked the last presidential election threaten to resurface. Conde later won the country’s first-ever democratic election.

At least three people have been killed in pre-election violence.

Elsewhere, young people armed with clubs and knives chanted “Allahu Akbar” – God is great – as they barricaded roads in the opposition stronghold of Bambeto.

Conde’s seven rivals also vowed to challenge the results, raising the spectre of further unrest in the days to come, after deadly clashes between Conde and opposition supporters in the final days of campaigning.

It is this West African country’s second democratic presidential election in more than 50 years.

Two people were killed and at least 33 were wounded in Guinea on Friday in clashes between supporters of President Alpha Conde and his main rival before Sunday’s election, witnesses and a senior police source said.

Political analyst Bano Barry said politicians in Guinea have long drawn support from their ethnic groups.

Mamadou Lamarana Diallo said today he saw an officer open fire on demonstrators, killing his friend, in a Conakry suburb known as an opposition stronghold. Vehicles and stores were set alight during the confrontations between opposition and ruling party supporters. “Everything is against us”.

He feared if riots broke out, as they have done after previous elections, he would lose all his possessions as he is member of the Fulani group that supports opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo. “I hope everyone does it in peace and that all goes smoothly”, said Mamadouba Camara, the first voter in polling station No. 5.

People wait to vote in an old bus which is used as a polling station in Conakry, Guinea, October 11, 2015. “Democracy is different here”, he said.

Conde voted in the Boulbinet neighborhood in Conakry’s center where he and other Cabinet ministers live. President Alpha Conde hopes to be re-elected.

United Nations data shows that 43 percent of the population still lives on less than $1.25 a day and one in 10 children die before their fifth birthday.

Youth unemployment is endemic and many young voters who spoke to Al Jazeera cited the lack of jobs as their most immediate concern.

Conde’s seven rivals, however, said that they would not recognize the results. “There is no justice here”.

“By 1600 local time, we will be able to determine not whether fraud has occurred but on what scale”, he said. “I’m just afraid for my business”.