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Young supporters of Guinean opponent Cellou Dalien Diallo, who has declared himself the winner of the presidential election, clashed with police on Wednesday in the Wanindara district of the country's capital Conakry.
African election monitors said Tuesday that Guinea's weekend election was conducted properly, but the political opposition to incumbent Alpha Conde, which has already claimed victory, dismissed it as fraudulent.
Preliminary results for four of the country's 38 voting districts released by electoral commission chief Kabinet Cisse late Tuesday showed a strong lead for Conde over his main challenger Cellou Dalein Diallo, who had claimed victory Monday.
In three of the four districts, Conde secured more than the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff vote, although an electoral commission official told AFP it was "impossible to extrapolate" to the final national result, expected later this week.
"Alpha Conde is doing everything possible to change ballot-box results in his favour" Diallo's campaign director Fode Oussou Fofana had earlier told reporters in the capital Conakry.
The opposition campaign has been setting the stage for an election dispute, with Fofana accusing the government of "large-scale fraud" in counting ballots from the hotly contested October 18 poll.
Conde, 82, is seeking a controversial third presidential term, a move that has triggered months of deadly unrest in the West African nation.
- Augustin Matata Ponyo, the African Union's head of mission in Guinea, said the ballot took place "in transparency" while the head of the West African ECOWAS monitoring mission said the vote was lawful.
Celebrations in Conakry of Diallo's self-proclaimed victory quickly descended into violent clashes with security forces, in which several youngsters were shot dead, opposition officials said.
Meanwhile in a seeming response to Diallo's self-proclaimed win, security forces dressed in riot gear surrounded his house in the capital. He tweeted that he was trapped inside.
- 'Irresponsible and dangerous' -
Security forces killed dozens of people in protests against a Conde third term, which began in October last year--.
Although polling day was mostly calm, Diallo's self-proclaimed election victory has ratched up tensions in the former French colony of some 13 million people.
The government insists the vote was fair and that only the official electoral authority can declare the results.
Conde's RPG party also called Diallo's move "irresponsible and dangerous" on Monday.
The international community is concerned too. The United Nations, African Union, and the 15-nation ECOWAS called the premature declaration of results "regrettable", in a joint statement on Monday.
"This state of affairs is not conducive to preserving calm," the statement said.
But on Tuesday, the communications director for Diallo's UFDG party, Ousmane Gaoual Diallo, said the party's own analysis of polling data collected from individual stations showed the opposition leader had won over 50 percent of the vote
Many people have been killed since clashes began on Monday. Scores too had been killed in the run up to the vote as protestors marched against Conde's bid for a third term.
Nine people, including one police officer, have died in the West African state of Guinea, the security ministry said Wednesday, following days of unrest after a tense weekend presidential election.
In a statement, the ministry pointed to shootings and stabbings in the capital Conakry and elsewhere in the country since Sunday's presidential vote.
\"This strategy of chaos (was) orchestrated to jeopardise the elections of October 18, \" the ministry said, adding that many people had been injured and property was damaged.
Clashes were ongoing in Conakry on Wednesday, where a security officer, Mamadou Keganan Doumbouya, told the press that at least three people had died.
And a local doctor, who declined to be named, said he had received two dead bodies, and nine injured people, at his clinic.
The violence follows the high-stakes election in which President Alpha Conde ran for a third term in a controversial bid that had already sparked mass protests.
With tensions already running high, Guinea's main opposition leader Cellou Dalein Diallo on Monday declared victory in the election -- before the announcement of the official results, which are expected this week.
Opposition supporters are deeply suspicious about the fairness of the poll, although the government insists that it was fair.
Much of the tension in Guinea centres on Conde's candidacy.
In March, the 82-year-old president pushed through a new constitution which he argued would modernise the country. It also allowed him to bypass a two-term limit for presidents, however.
Security forces repressed mass protests against the move from October last year, killing dozens of people.
On Wednesday, plumes of black smoke rose over an opposition stronghold in the capital Conakry, where protesters erected barricades and lit fires, an AFP journalist saw.
Youths in alleyways also hurled stones at police officers stationed along a main artery who fired back tear gas canisters.
The security ministry stated that \"a police officer was lynched to death\" in a Conakry suburb, without specifying when the attack occurred.
In a social media post earlier on Wednesday, Conde appealed for \"calm and serenity while awaiting the outcome of the electoral process\".
- Clashes and barricades -
Ten candidates are in the race besides alongside frontrunners Conde and Diallo, old political rivals who traded barbs in a bitter campaign.
Despite fears of violence after the pre-vote clashes, polling day was mostly calm.
Then Diallo's self-proclaimed election victory ratcheted up tensions, and celebrations by his supporters descended into violent clashes with security forces on Monday.
The opposition politician said that security forces killed three youngsters that night, although AFP was unable to confirm the details.
Security forces also barricaded Diallo inside his house, the politician said on Tuesday.
Monitors from the African Union and the 15-nation West African bloc ECOWAS both said that Guinea's election was mostly fair, despite insistence from Diallo's camp tha
Wisconsin voters are left with two options: requesting an absentee ballot online or voting on election day.
According to USA Today, “Trump, who has railed against vote-by-mail for weeks, took his assault a step further Wednesday, threatening to withhold federal funds from Michigan if it “illegally” sends absentee ballot applications to the state’s citizens before its primary Aug. 4 and the election Nov. 3.
Multiple news report also stated that most secretaries of state said they made the proactive move to send applications not only to educate voters about the option but to encourage them to vote by mail to avoid the health risks of voters flocking to polling sites and standing in long lines on election night.
To rely solely on voters to apply for an absentee ballot online assumes all Wisconsinites have access to quality internet service—and we know this to be an issue for people across our state, especially individuals in rural communities without broadband access.
To only require everyone to stand in line and vote only on election day places the community at much greater risk of contracting COVID-19; and having only a mail-in ballot option is subject to human error due to hiccups with postal mail, human interaction and adequate processing time.
Nearly 2,000 Burke County citizens have opted to vote early for the Nov. 3 general election. As of 2 p.m. yesterday (Tuesday), a total of 1,965 ballots had been cast, according to Laverne Sello, executive director for the Burke County Board of Elections and Registration. On the first day of early voting last Monday, Sello confirmed a record high 307, […]
District Judge Fred Biery granted a preliminary injunction that allows all registered voters to apply to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic after finding the state’s existing election rules violate the Equal Protection Clause.
A federal judge opened a path for a massive expansion in absentee voting in Texas by ordering Tuesday that all state voters, regardless of age, qualify for mail-in ballots during the coronavirus pandemic.
Days after a two-hour preliminary injunction hearing in San Antonio, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery agreed with individual Texas voters and the Texas Democratic Party that voters would face irreparable harm if existing age eligibility rules for voting by mail remain in place for elections held while the coronavirus remains in wide circulation.
Biery’s ruling covers Texas voters “who seek to vote by mail to avoid transmission of the virus.”
In the federal lawsuit, the Texas Democrats argued that holding traditional elections under the circumstances brought on by the coronavirus pandemic would impose unconstitutional and illegal burdens on voters unless state law was clarified to expand who can qualify to vote by mail.
A law expert has said the resignation of Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson Jane Ansah just weeks into a crucial presidential election has plunged the country into yet another electoral crisis.
Justine Dzonzi: Fresh elections are court sanctioned polls therefore do not disrupt the electoral process
Justin Dzonzi of Justice Link says it will not be possible for a new commission to hold an election in two weeks' time.
The term of office for Ansah--a judge of the Malawi Supreme Court of Appeal--was set to expire in October this year while that for her eight commissioners is ending on June 5 this year
\"This means in two weeks' time, we will have no commission at all.
\"Take into account that we will have an election on 23 June, this is an electoral crisis,\" he said.
The judgment was upheld by the Supreme Court of Appeal, the country's top judicial authority, after an appeal by Mutharika and the electoral body.
Over the past seven years, states and localities have reverted to discriminatory practices that restrict the voting rights of Black, Brown, Native, and Asian American people and have put up unnecessary roadblocks to the ballot.
On this anniversary, Tina Knowles-Lawson, Mothers of the Movement, and Black women celebrities urge the Senate to pass H.R. 6800, The HEROES Act, that includes $3.6 billion in funding for state administration of federal elections.
Tina Knowles-Lawson; Viola Davis; Whoopi Goldberg; Octavia Spencer; Jada Pinkett Smith; Beyoncé Knowles Carter; Solange Knowles; Gabrielle Union; Taraji P. Henson; Kelly Rowland; Lala Anthony; Halle Berry; Yvette Nicole Brown; Melina Matsoukas; Janelle Monáe; Bozoma Saint John; Holly Robinson Peete; Oge Egbuonu; Lena Waithe; Kerry Washington; Rashida Jones; Gwenn Carr, Mother of Eric Garner; Kadiatou Diallo, Mother of Amadou Diallo; Sybrina Fulton, Mother of Trayvon Martin; Maria Hamilton, Mother of Dontre Hamilton; Wanda Johnson, Mother of Oscar Grant;Rep. Lucy McBath, Mother of Jordan Davis Tamika Palmer, Mother of Breonna Taylor; and Geneva Reed-Veal, Mother of Sandra Bland.
Tina Knowles-Lawson, Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, Octavia Spencer, Jada Pinkett Smith, Beyoncé Knowles Carter, Solange Knowles, Gabrielle Union, Taraji P. Henson, Kelly Rowland, Lala Anthony, Halle Berry, Yvette Nicole Brown, Melina Matsoukas, Janelle Monáe, Bozoma Saint John, Holly Robinson Peete, Oge Egbuonu, Lena Waithe, Kerry Washington, Rashida Jones, Gwenn Carr (Mother of Eric Garner), Kadiatou Diallo (Mother of Amadou Diallo), Sybrina Fulton (Mother of Trayvon Martin), Maria Hamilton (Mother of Dontre Hamilton), Wanda Johnson (Mother of Oscar Grant), Rep. Lucy McBath (Mother of Jordan Davis), Tamika Palmer (Mother of Breonna Taylor), Geneva Reed-Veal (Mother of Sandra Bland)
