Peaceful elections for Guinea – for now

Ban “deplores recent violence in the country and calls on all national stakeholders to uphold their commitments and ensure that the elections are conducted in a peaceful and transparent manner that reflects the will of the people of Guinea”, his office said in a statement. “In these conditions, we again demand that the election be scrapped because we can not recognise results issued through this process”, Diallo said.

Main opposition candidate Cellou Dalein Diallo and the six other candidates who are running against President Alpha Conde spoke Monday at a press conference.

The 77-year-old Conde is widely expected to win a second mandate, although the results were expected to be close enough to require a second round, probably against main rival Cellou Dalein Diallo.

“We will not give in, we have the right to demonstrate, we will demonstrate”.

But in an attempt to defuse tensions between his mostly ethnic Peuhl supporters and those drawn from Conde’s Malinke community, Diallo said on Saturday he would participate in the presidential election.

A few polling stations remained open late, after voting materials arrived late or ran out.

President Conde was elected in November 2010 in the first fair and free democratic election in Guinea’s 57-year history.

Diallo said there were flagrant violations of the laws of the republic. Others said their votes ran smoothly.

Security forces kept an eye on the work, but local residents anxious about fraud also watched, relaying results to family and friends by telephone.

Sidya Toure, a former prime minister who placed third against Conde in 2010, denounced problems with the vote.

“After the Ebola epidemic, Guinea really needs to unite to get back to moving forward”, the president said, arguing that the outbreak, which claimed 2,500 lives in Guinea and thousands more in Liberia and Sierra Leone, had hindered development.