Guinea coup leader Mamady Doumbouya has been elected president, according to provisional results announced on Tuesday, completing the return to civilian rule in the bauxite- and iron ore-rich West African nation.<\/p>\n
The former\u00a0special forces commander, thought to be in his early 40s, seized power in 2021, toppling then-President Alpha Conde, who had been in office since 2010. It was one in a series of nine coups that have reshaped politics in West and Central Africa since 2020.<\/p>\n
The provisional results announced on Tuesday showed Doumbouya winning 86.72% of the\u00a0December 28\u00a0vote, an absolute majority that allows him to avoid a runoff.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court has eight days to validate the results in the event of any challenge.<\/p>\n
Doumbouya’s victory, which gives him a seven-year mandate, was widely expected. Conde and Cellou Dalein Diallo, Guinea’s longtime opposition leader, are in exile, which left Doumbouya to face a fragmented field of\u00a0eight challengers.<\/p>\n
DOUMBOUYA REVERSED PLEDGE NOT TO RUN<\/strong><\/p>\n The original post-coup charter in Guinea barred junta members from running in elections, but a constitution dropping those restrictions was passed in a September referendum.<\/p>\n Djenabou Toure, the country’s top election official who announced the results on Tuesday night, said turnout was 80,95%. However voter participation appeared tepid in the capital Conakry, and opposition politicians rejected a similarly high turnout figure for the September referendum.<\/p>\n Guinea holds the world’s largest bauxite reserves and the richest untapped iron ore deposit at Simandou, officially launched\u00a0last month\u00a0after years of delay.<\/p>\n Doumbouya has claimed credit for pushing the project forward and ensuring Guinea benefits from its output.<\/p>\n His government this year also revoked the licence of Emirates Global Aluminium’s subsidiary Guinea Alumina Corporation following a refinery dispute, transferring the unit’s assets to a state-owned firm.<\/p>\n The turn toward resource nationalism – echoed in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – has boosted his popularity, as has his relative youth in a country where the median age is about 19.<\/p>\n POLITICAL SPACE RESTRICTED, U.N. SAYS<\/strong><\/p>\n Political debate has been muted under Doumbouya. Civil society groups accuse his government of banning protests, curbing press freedom and restricting opposition activity.<\/p>\n The campaign period was “severely restricted, marked by intimidation of opposition actors, apparently politically motivated enforced disappearances, and constraints on media freedom,” U.N. rights chief Volker Turk said last week.<\/p>\n On Monday, opposition candidate Faya Lansana Millimono told a press conference the election was marred by “systematic fraudulent practices” and that observers were prevented from monitoring the voting and counting processes.<\/p>\n The government did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Guinea coup leader Mamady Doumbouya has been elected president, according to provisional results announced on Tuesday, completing the return to civilian rule in the bauxite- and iron ore-rich West African nation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,27],"tags":[110,248,258],"class_list":["post-19111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-west-africa","tag-alpha-conde","tag-guinea","tag-mamady-doumbouya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19113,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19111\/revisions\/19113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}